| Matt 16:5-11 Can the
Lord sanctify you? is a question we need to answer because God only works through clean
vessels. The devil is busy attacking families, churches and nations but are you a
sanctified person through whom the Lord can work to bring about His victory?
The disciples presumed that the Lord was referring to the fact
that they had forgotten to bring along bread for the trip. Our Lord Jesus was referring to
something else completely - the "leaven of the Pharisees". Their confusion is
typical of what the devil is best at - confusing people! Satan is a confuser. The
disciples, had they followed their line of logic, might have ended up gossping about Jesus
being unreasonable in scolding them for forgetting bread. "They discussed among
themselves" may have ended up with completely the wrong conclusion. Jesus then
addressed this misperception and they understood. Perhaps you don't discuss things with
others, but you "discuss" with yourself. You get just as confused.
There are so many children of God who miss out on being sanctified
because they do not speak to the Lord. Instead, they are busy speaking among themselves.
Many miss out on the fact that holiness is simply the presence of God. He is the
sanctifier.
In James 1: 22-25 we are told: But be ye
doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
For if any be a hearer of the
word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner
of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a
doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
He is the sanctifier. When we look into His Word it is like a
person looking at themselves into the mirror. His Word is the "law of liberty"
and not legalism. If you refuse to let this "law of liberty" do its work you
will fail to be sanctified.
The devil will do everything in his power to confuse people so
that they waste their lives. An example is a certain Sarah who lost her husband and her
little baby.
Sarah became heir of a vast fortune, but no amount of money would assuage her grief. She
possessed no answer to the death or loneliness that overwhelmed her. Sarah sold her home
in New Haven, moved west with her boundless fortune, and finally reached a spot near San
Jose where she found a large house under construction on a big piece of land. She
purchased the house, tossed away the plans, and started building whatever she chose. For
thirty-six years her workers built and rebuilt, altered and changed and constructed and
demolished one section of the house after another. Railway cars brought in supplies, and
every morning Sarah met with her foreman to sketch out new rooms. Rooms were added to
rooms, wings were added to wings, levels were turned into towers and peaks. Staircases led
nowhere. Doors opened to nothing. Closets opened to blank walls. Hallways doubled back
upon themselves. Sarah Winchester depleted her fortune by building and rebuilding,
remodeling and renovating her vast, confusing, sprawling, unplanned mansion. Her only
"friends" were the spirits of those that had been killed by the Winchester
rifles who she met in the blue room every night after the bell tolled at
midnight. But the Bible says that they are not spirits of the dead, but demons. She sought
no help from others who might have helped her.
Will you allow the devil to confuse you like he did with Sarah? Or
will you allow the Lord to sanctify you?
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