GCV Blog

I have a love/hate relationship with instruction manuals. On the love side, I am a compulsive reader of instructions. Before I turn on any new phone, assemble any toddler toy or dive into the new furniture, I first sit down and read the instructions from cover to cover. Well, actually, I usually skip the Spanish, German, French, Danish and Chinese portions of the manual. On the hate side, I find it hard to handle the incredibly common ineptness with the English language, inability to draw a reasonable likeness to the product and convoluted order of events.

Through God’s providence, Andy Muxlow and I independently picked the same topic for the pastoral word. Since this is a topic that is on both of our minds and one that is profitable to con­sider, let’s again think carefully on the topic of spiritual warfare.

I am fascinated by the amount of preparation, money, training and the sheer numbers of men and women that go into our U.S. Armed Forces to protect our freedom and defend our nation. Every soldier is trained with the most basic task of dressing and arming himself. It is critical that a soldier is prepared in every way for the battle that lies ahead. First, he must know what battle armor he is to wear. Second, he needs to actually have the uniform and weapons of war. And third, he has to put it on.

Sanctification means being “consecrated” or “set apart.” There are two parts to the sanctification of a believer. The first occurs at salvation when someone is set apart for God as one of His people. In this moment, he becomes a “saint.” The second part of sanctification is what we usually think of as the definition and pertains to the process a believer goes through during his life.