Sanctification Quotes

Sin is the transgression of the law, the death of Christ is the satisfaction of the law, justification is the verdict of the law, and sanctification is the believer's fulfillment of the law.

~ Ernest F. Kevan

The way to conquer sin is not by working hard to change our deeds, but by trusting Jesus to change our desires. Follow Me, pg. 111.

~ David Platt

Progress in evil was quick and easy; Apollyon was not a chap who hid himself and he gave every assistance in his power. The growth in goodness was so slow, at times so flat, so dull, and like the White Queen one had to run so fast to stay where one was, let alone progress; and there were few men who dared to say they had found God. It was easy to be a clever sinner, for the race to an earthly visible goal was short to run, so impossibly hard to be a wise saint, with the goal set at so vast a distance from this world and clouded with such uncertainty.

~ Elizabeth Goudge

If Christ has died for me, I cannot trifle with the evil that killed my best Friend.

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

American Christianity is a story of perpetual upheavals in churches and individual lives. Starting with the extraordinary conversion experience, our lives are motivated by a constant expectation for the Next Big Thing. We're growing bored with the ordinary means of God's grace, attending church week in and week out. Doctrines and disciplines that have shaped faithful Christian witness in the past are often marginalized or substituted with newer fashions or methods. The new and improved may dazzle us for a moment, but soon they have become so last year. Michael Horton, Ordinary, 16

~ Michael S. Horton

When you became a Christian, you were still susceptible to living the way you learned to live before. Your brain was not wiped clean. That conflicts with this new life to which you gave yourself. Is it easy being a Christian in this world today? No! You are living in two contrary worlds at the same time. The two worlds have collided!

~ Van Harden

The real problem is that our values are changing and the new ones are wearing us out. But they're also keeping us from forming genuine, long-term, and meaningful commitments that actually contribute to the lives of others. Over time, the hype of living a new life, taking up a radical calling, and changing the world can creep into every area of our life. And it can make us tired, depressed, and mean. Michael Horton, Ordinary, 13-14

~ Michael S. Horton

The heart must be renewed by divine grace, or it will be in vain to seek for purity of life. He who attempts to build up a noble, virtuous character independent of the grace of Christ is building his house upon the shifting sand.

~ Ellen G. White

The Bible is different because it is the Word of God, by which He speaks to me. Disagreeing with the Bible would be disagreeing with God. So when I read the Bible I want to place myself ‘under’ it. I want to receive the Scripture in such a way that over time, my thinking, feeling, choosing, believing and behaving will be molded by the Word God is speaking into my life. I don’t want to critique the Scriptures; I want them to critique me and change me.

~ Colin S. Smith

We are caught in the in between of what we already are what we are yet to be.

~ Tenth Avenue North

Keep yourselves from idols. The warning isn't given to them because it wasn't a real danger or because there was an off chance someone might fall into idolatry. It was given because this is our root problem on any given day. It is what we, especially as followers of Jesus, must fight against.

~ Joe Thorn

a sense of the love of Christ in the cross, lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification

~ John Owen

Sensual indulgence weakens the mind and debases the soul. The moral and intellectual powers are benumbed and paralyzed by the gratification of the animal propensities and it is impossible for the slave of passion to realize the sacred obligation of the Law of God, to appreciate the atonement, or to place right value upon the soul.

~ Ellen G. White

Man's thought is always of the punishment that will come to him if he sins. God's thought is always of the glory man will miss if he sins. God's purpose for redemption is glory, glory, glory.

~ Watchman Nee

The real difference in the believer who follows Christ and has mortified his will and died after the old man in Christ, is that he is more clearly aware than other men of the rebelliousness and perennial pride of the flesh, he is conscious of his sloth and self-indulgence and knows that his arrogance must be eradicated. Hence there is a need for daily self-discipline.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

On God's calendar, there are no ordinary days.

~ David Mcgee

Whatever confronts your faith can be a test but if it stands to oppose the content of your personality and the validity of your convictions then it's threat.

~ Kingsley Opuwari Manuel

Long looking with admiration produces change. From your heroes you pick up mannerisms and phrases and tones of voice and facial expressions and habits and demeanors and convictions and beliefs. The more admirable the hero is and the more intense your admiration is, the more profound will be your transformation. In the case of Jesus, he is infinitely admirable, and our admiration rises to the most absolute worship. Therefore, when we behold him as we should, the change is profound.

~ John Piper

So close to the powers of evil she must have lived that she still breathed more freely in their air.

~ Edith Wharton

The end is where we start from. T.S. Eliot

~ Eugene H. Peterson

We cry down the law in respect of justification, but we set it up as a rule of sanctification. The law sends us to the Gospel that we may be justified; and the Gospel sends us to the law again to inquire what is our duty as those who are justified.

~ Samuel Bolton

For true conversion doth not consist in putting away great and outward sins only, but in descending deeply into your own self, searching into the inmost recesses of the heart, the secrets and closets, all the windings and turnings thereof; changing and renewing them throughout, with the grace that is given you: and so, by faith, you are converted from self-love to Divine love; from the world and all worldly concupiscences, to a spiritual and heavenly life; and from a participation of the pomps and pleasures thereof, to participating the merits and virtues of Christ, by believing his word, and walking in his steps.

~ Johann Arndt

Justification is the new creation of the new man, and sanctification his preservation until the day of Jesus Christ.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Part of what we pick up in looking at Jesus in the gospel is a way of viewing the whole world. That worldview informs all our values and deeply shapes our thinking and decision-making. Another part of what we absorb is greater confidence in Jesus' counsel and his promises. This has its own powerful effect on what we fear and desire and choose. Another part of what we take up from beholding the glory of Christ is greater delight in his fellowship and deeper longing to see him in heaven. This has its own liberating effect from the temptations of this world. All these have their own peculiar way of changing us into the likeness of Christ. Therefore, we should not think that pursuing likeness to Christ has no other components than just looking at Jesus. Looking at Jesus produces holiness along many different paths.

~ John Piper

One does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime. Nor is surrender to the will of God (per se) adequate to fullness of power in Christ. Maturity is the accomplishment of years, and I can only surrender to the will of God as I know what that will is.

~ Elisabeth Elliot

As you call people to submit to the Person of Christ, you can trust the Spirit of Christ to lead them to salvation.

~ David Platt

The Church, like her head, has a glory, but it is concealed from carnal eyes, for the time of her breaking forth in all her splendour is not yet come.

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

It is possible to feel angered by the compromises all around us, while remaining apathetic to the compromises inside us.

~ Stephen Davey

Human sin is stubborn, but not as stubborn as the grace of God and not half as persistent, not half so ready to suffer to win its way

~ James Macdonald

You cannot contain evil by shaming it, or making people feel guilty, but only by revealing it toward it is, and then seeing the good as better.

~ Richard Rohr

The author tells a story wherein a missionary friend of his was invited by unbelievers on a train ride to play cards. The friend declined, saying that he did not bring his hands with him. He explained to the astonished group that the hands attached to what they saw as his body belonged to the Lord, and he was thereby able to explain the Gospel.

~ Watchman Nee

What Paul understands by holiness or sanctification (is) the learning in the present of the habits which anticipate the ultimate future.

~ N.t. Wright

When we appear to be “more a loser than a victor” on the Path it is easy to lose sight of the fact that we are growing spiritually.

~ Tom Payne

We honestly think that we ourselves and those around us should be proficient with spiritual power, moving and acting with agility and endurance, wisdom and purity, able to conquer long-established habits of sloth and rebelliousness, simply on the basis of our desire and effort and sincerity...We have to train for the spiritual life.

~ Mark Buchanan

One way to handle the discrepancy between our beliefs and our sinful inclinations is to repent, pray for grace and forgiveness, and struggle on in the belief that God will forge a greater harmony for us out of our battle with sin. That is the Christian approach. ~ p.75

~ William Kilpatrick

Monastic spirituality concentrated on private disciplines, as if detaching oneself from the world (i.e. society) might make one holier. Anabaptist piety was similar in that regard. However, Calvin thought of sanctification as a family affair. How could one learn loving humility, patience, wisdom, and forgiveness in isolation from others?

~ Michael S. Horton

There should be as much difference between the worldling and the Christian, as between hell and heaven, between destruction and eternal life.

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Cross and resurrection are the South and North polls, true gospel polarities, of a single, undivided, salvation world. Remove either Paul and you've got salvation.

~ Eugene H. Peterson

The author challenges how much sanctity has to do with sameness, as he says saints are as different from each other as those in any group -- even murderers.

~ G.k. Chesterton

Beauty is transformed over time, and not without destruction.

~ Terry Tempest Williams