SANCTIFICATION BRINGS FORTH WONDERS

SANCTIFICATION BRINGS FORTH WONDERS 

"Sanctify yourselves; for tomorrow Jehovah will do wonders among you” Josh. 3:5

This was the command which indicated the conditions upon which God agreed with His people to lead them in. Thus their first movement forward under Joshua was of such a nature as to impress them as the chosen people with THE TRUTH OF THEIR POSITIVE RELATION TO GOD. There was nothing in this first advance calculated to give them any cause for personal glorying. They came on to the actual soil of Canaan, not by deflecting the course of the intervening river or by bridging it, but by DIVINE INTERVENTION. His might was exercised as He laid arrest upon the rushing river, and so made a highway for His people to the other side. But His power operated when they fulfilled these conditions. The wonders of God are performed for His people when they SANCTIFY THEMSELVES that is when, so far as they have light, they walk in it. We play according to His rule book and when you know what the rule is and obey Him, wonders happen. The call to SANCTIFICATION, as an act on the part of the people of God, is a call to separation from everything which they know He disapproves, and of dedication to Him completely, in mind and heart and will. The attitude is more than activity. That is to say, in proportion as in our deepest life we YIELD TO HIS WILL, first knowing what His will is, we place ourselves in line with His work. The application is PERSONAL AND SOCIAL. It is true of the individual and of the Church, that all our progress is the result of the putting forth of His power; but it is equally true that HE WORKS WHEN THERE IS RESPONSE TO HIS CALL, and WHEN OUR SANCTIFICATION TO HIM IS UNQUESTIONED AND COMPLETE, for there are many pretenders out there (Matt. 7:21-22). Clean up your act if you need wonders in your life.