Sanctification

By
Grace
Ryan Rufus
 Sanctification by Grace.

New Nature Publications.

Copyright 2008

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For more information about New Nature Publications and Ryan Rufus please visit:

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Do Christians still have a sinful nature?

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 I would like to dedicate this book to all of God’s
grace revolutionaries across the world who are
making a stand for the pure gospel even in the face
of persecution. Continue to stand strong in the
grace of God for there are multitudes coming into
liberty!
 Contents:
Preface

Definitions of Sanctification

Chapter 1: The trinity of man

I am a spirit, I live in a body and I have a soul (mind).

Chapter 2: Regeneration

Empowered for Sanctification.

Chapter 3: The starting point of Sanctification

The event that changed our eternal position.

Chapter 4: Being Sanctified

The process that changes our current condition.

Chapter 5: The full extent of Sanctification

It‟s so much more than just not sinning!

 Preface

The word sanctification has become a dirty word in

the body of Christ. Many Christians feel like instant
failures as soon as they hear the word sanctification.
Many Christians have been badly butchered by
legalistic sanctification teaching. Teaching that
drives them rather than empowers them. Teaching
that manipulates and commands them to “do more”
and “be more” for God, (As if it weren‟t in their hearts
already and that you have to whip Christians into it.)
and if they don‟t then their „rebellious nature‟ will
take over and cause them to run from God and sin
against God.

This could not be further from the truth. Some

preachers have mixed up their role with the role of
the cross. They think it‟s their job to help Christians
die to their old self when in actual fact that has
already taken place at the cross when we came into
Christ! Oh, if preachers could just be released from
the burden of feeling like they have to control sin in
Christians, and find release from the misconception
that preaching true grace gives people a license to
sin. These preachers haven‟t seen their salvation!
They are unaware and confused about what took
place in their spirit at the point of salvation and
therefore they are also unaware of the empowerment
that is available to every Christian who desires to
live for God!

Sanctification teaching is not about telling

Christians what they should and/or shouldn‟t be
doing. It‟s about identifying the very passions and
desires that God has put in their spirit at re-birth and
empowering those passions to come out. Inside the
spirit of every Christian is the full blown passion for
Jesus Christ! Yet it gets covered up with the affairs
and distractions of this world; with religiosity,
legalism, bad theology, passionless traditions, or
simply guilt, shame and condemnation. Telling a
Christian to do more and be more is just crushing
when they are drowning in these other things.
Especially because the passion of their spirit is
already to be more and do more for God! This kind of
sanctification teaching only smothers their spirit.
Sanctification teaching should instead un-smother
their spirit and release the passions that are already
there. If a Christian could live totally by the things
that God put in their spirit at the point of salvation,
without any hindrance from anything else, then that
Christian would live in absolute righteousness,
obedience and fruitfulness to God!

Sanctification must start in the right place and it

must be built on a foundation of grace, not law. Much
of the sanctification teaching today is either implicit
law dressed up as grace or just explicit law! The end
result is that Christians end up believing that the
quality of their relationship with God is based on
their performance rather than the finished work of
Jesus.

In this book I want to show that sanctification is

actually a wonderful thing. It‟s a privilege that only
born again people get to partake in. It‟s the process
whereby we are drawn into an empowering
relationship with God, by His grace, and from there
live out the full expression of the life we are called
to: Our destiny!
 Definitions of Sanctification:

Hagiasmos is the Greek word for sanctification.

W.E. Vine‟s expository dictionary of Greek words

defines it as:

a) A separation to God, and

b) The course of life befitting those so separated.

My definitions:

 Sanctification is being separated unto God, coming

into your heavenly position in Christ, and it‟s the
life that currently flows out of that position.

 Sanctification says that your spirit has already

become perfectly like Christ and now your mind
and body are catching up!

 Sanctification has happened and is happening! It‟s

an event and a process. The process of
sanctification can happen because the event of
sanctification has already happened.
 Sanctification is not a dirty word. It‟s a revelation
of God‟s will to supernaturally transform you into
Christ‟s likeness. It‟s also a revelation about how
that very same „will‟ was placed inside of you at
the point of salvation and that now, whether you
realize it or not, it‟s also your will to become like
Christ!

 Sanctification is where your current earthly

condition starts to become more and more like
your eternal heavenly position. The means by
which this happens is not by willpower, self effort
or law but through regular encounters with the God
of glory and being established in His word of grace.

 Sanctification is not a „have to‟. It‟s an overflow of

what has taken place inside of you! Take off the
„have to‟s‟ and the „want to‟s‟ will arise.

 Sanctification is more than just being holy: It‟s

about living in all the things, on earth, that you
have already received and come into in heaven.
That is true holiness!
Scriptures showing sanctification has already
happened:

1. Acts 20:32
“Now I commit you to God and to the word of his
grace, which can build you up and give you an
inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”

2. Acts 26:18
“…to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to
light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that
they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place
among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”

3. 1 Corinthians 1:2
“To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified
in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with
all those everywhere who call on the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours…”

4. 1 Corinthians 6:11
“And that is what some of you were. But you were
washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit
of our God.”
Chapter 1: The trinity of man.
I am a spirit, I live in a body and I have a soul (mind).

It‟s important to understand the three parts that

every person is made up of before we talk about
sanctification because sanctification concerns all
three parts. If we don‟t understand the distinction
between spirit, soul and body we will struggle to
understand how certain scriptures apply to each part
and sanctification will become confusing. You may
think it‟s weird that I‟ve started here, but this is
foundational to understanding true sanctification,
trust me. I believe this is one of the most important
studies a Christian can do. Revelation on this subject
will transform your life! So let‟s look at the trinity of
man.

Every human being is made up of three major parts:

Spirit, mind (soul) and body.

Now there are also three major realms known to

man:

The spiritual realm, the mental realm and the

physical realm.
We live in all three realms but interact with them
differently: With our bodies, the physical realm. This
happens through our five physical senses (touch,
taste, see, hear, smell). With our spirits, the spiritual
realm. God is Spirit and we have been created in His
likeness as spirit beings. Those who worship God
must worship in „spirit‟ and in truth. Finally, with our
minds the mental realm.

You are not just the hunk of flesh and bone that
everyone else sees. You are much more than that.
Even though it‟s the part that everyone knows you
by, it is actually the least part of you! The most
accurate and helpful way to look at this is to say:

„I am a spirit, I live in a body and I have a mind

(soul).‟

You are a spirit, you live in a body and you have a

mind!

You live in a body, but you are not that body. It is

your earth suit! If it died, you wouldn‟t die. The real
you, which is your spirit, wouldn‟t die. It would go on
to be with the Lord. If you are born again you will
never die! Your flesh may die but you, the real you,
your spirit, cannot die! It just instantly goes to be
with the Lord.

Now how does salvation affect each of these parts?

Salvation happened instantly in your spirit, is

happening in your mind, and will one day happen in
your body.

It has happened, is happening and will happen. It has

happened in your spirit, which is the most important
thing. The fact that it has happened in your spirit
means that it is happening in your mind now and will
happen in your body when you go to be with the
Lord. It doesn‟t have to happen in your body and
mind in order for it to happen in your spirit. It first
happened in your spirit and because of that, it is
happening in your body and mind now.

Salvation was instant in our spirit and made us alive

with Christ. That‟s when we received every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly realm (Eph 1), when our
spirit was seated in heavenly places with Christ (Eph
2), hidden in Christ (Col 3), became a co-heir with
Christ (Eph 2). When our spirit was born again and
became a new creation (Titus 2, 2 Cor 5:17).
Nothing changed in our mind or our body at the point
of salvation. We didn‟t receive a new mind or a new
body. They stayed exactly the same. We still have all
the same memories in our minds and even the same
thinking (except that we changed our mind
concerning what we believe about Jesus). It‟s foolish
to think that salvation changed the desires of our
body or the thought processes and memories of our
mind. It didn‟t! Salvation changed our spirit and it‟s
our spirit that needs to take control over our body
and our mind and thus lead them into alignment with
our spirit! It‟s our spirit that offers our body as a
living sacrifice, and it‟s our spirit that subjects our
mind to renewing through the presence and word of
God.

You can see how your spirit needs to be the one in

control. Otherwise your body will naturally follow its
appetites and your mind will continue to stay worldly
and lead you into worldly thoughts and actions.

Now, God did something with your spirit, but He

expects you now (by that new spirit) to do something
with your body and your mind.

Romans 12:1, 2
Now it is your responsibility to do something with
your body and mind, not His! (Yes, we surrender to
Him and partner with him, but we can‟t give him
control unless we are first in control. We are in
control of this process.) That‟s why we offer our body
and we renew our mind.

I want to talk about walking in the spirit and how we

do that, but first let‟s look at our heavenly eternal
position and our earthly current condition:

When we were saved, which parts of us came into

our eternal position and which parts of us became
our current condition?

When we were saved our spirit came instantly into

our eternal position in Christ. (Hidden in Christ,
anchored in Christ, seated with Christ, united with
Christ, etc.) That can never be undone or changed. If
it could, it would mean that Jesus could be crucified
twice, which is absolutely impossible. Why? Simply
because it‟s impossible for Jesus to die again. How
can our salvation be reversed? When our salvation
happened we were united with Christ in crucifixion,
burial and resurrection. To lose your salvation would
be to reverse that resurrection and die again. Then
we would have to dig up our old self from the grave,
nail it back up on the cross and resurrect it back into
spiritual death! Being united with Christ means He
would need to go through it all with us! Do you think
that is something that can happen? Impossible! Well
if that can‟t happen then it‟s impossible to lose your
salvation and position in Christ.

Now, our position in Christ speaks about our spiritual

position. Our spirit is with us now in our body and yet
it is hidden in Christ in heavenly places at the same
time. Try getting your mind around that! (Col 3:1-4)

Our body and our mind remain in their same

condition which is our current earthly condition.

Our eternal position is not subject to change but our

current condition definitely is subject to change. Our
eternal position cannot be influenced by our current
condition but our current condition can be influenced
by our eternal position! That‟s what this whole book
is about.
Hebrews 10:14: “…because by one sacrifice he has
made perfect forever those who are being made
holy.”

Which part of us was made perfect and which part is

being made holy? Our spirit was made perfect. That
was the event that brought our spirit into its eternal
position. That‟s the event of sanctification. And our
body and mind are being made holy. Our current
condition is that our body and our mind are
increasingly being separated unto God for holy living.
That‟s the process of sanctification.

Sanctification is an expression of increasing

holiness in our current condition because of what
happened in our eternal position. It‟s about your
current condition becoming more and more like your
eternal position. That‟s Christian maturity: It‟s where
you consistently live from your position out into and
through your condition. Your eternal position is that
you have been made righteous. Therefore because
you have been made righteous in your position, you
begin to live it out in your condition. We‟re not made
righteous because we live righteous. We live
righteous because we have been made righteous!
Because we have been brought into total obedience
positionally (Romans 1:5), we live obediently in our
current condition. Obedience to God is no sacrifice
for your spirit! We have been bought out of slavery
and brought into freedom, so now we live as free
people in freedom. We have been made sons, so now
we live as sons. We have been justified, so now we
don‟t live condemned! We live from our position
through our current condition. That‟s how our
position affects our condition.

Warning:

You are about to be exposed to concentrated truth

that will forever alter your state of mind!

Your position in Christ is perfect and can never

change! Never ever ever ever EVER!!! It‟s perfect.
Your condition might not look as good, but your
condition does not have to come up to your position
in order for you to be made perfect. No, your position
was made perfect first! And out of that, you are
being made holy in your condition.

Your inner man was instantly made just like Christ.

Now your mind and body are coming into alignment
with that!
Sanctification happens instantly and progressively.
It‟s an event and a process. The process does not
determine whether the event will take place later,
nor does the process make the event possible. It‟s
an event that makes the process possible! The event
that brought you into your position has happened.
Now the process that is bringing your condition into
your position is happening. One day when you go to
be with the Lord, that process will be complete: Your
current condition will be your eternal position and
that is glorification!!! (Romans 8:29, 1 Corinthians 15)

Right now our current condition cannot affect our

eternal position in any way. However, our eternal
position can affect our current condition. We are
seated with Christ in heavenly places. That‟s pretty
close to God! The Bible says we should also have
total confidence to draw near to God because we
don‟t approach God on the basis of our current
condition but on the basis of our eternal position in
Christ. We don‟t draw near through our blood but
through His! (Hebrews 10) Therefore we have every
right to live near to God and encounter Him every
moment of every day.
2 Corinthians 3:18 says that as we encounter His
glory, we are changed and transformed by His glory
into the likeness of Christ. As we encounter Christ
face to face we become like him. Sanctification is
becoming like Christ in our spirit, mind and body.
This is how it works: As we encounter Christ, the
fullness of Christ is activated in our spirit by His
glory presence and begins to extend its influence to
our body and mind. The more this happens the more
our spirit takes control and lives in control over our
body and our mind. The more our mind is renewed
through God‟s word and through these encounters,
the less resistance it gives to our spirit. Our mind
and our body want to control and lead us, but it‟s
only our spirit man that is perfect and Christ-like and
can therefore lead us into Christ-likeness. You will
never become more Christ-like by sheer will and
effort. It can only be through regular encounters with
Christ and His living word.

The world and Satan both try to put so much rubbish

and heaviness on your mind and body which is
impossible to truly overcome by mere self effort.
Your mind and body will not lead you into Christ-
likeness. They cannot. It must be your spirit that
leads you into His presence to encounter Him and be
changed by Him. See it‟s not essentially the Bible
that renews our mind. The Bible gives us revelation
about God that leads us to an encounter with God,
and it‟s that encounter which transforms us!
Troubles and hardships don‟t in themselves make us
more mature and like Christ. Everyone responds
differently in hardships and not always in the right
way. No, it‟s hardships and troubles that cause us to
run to God and encounter God for help, and as we
encounter Him we get His perspective about the
troubles and hardships and His grace to help us
through. Through those encounters with Him we
become more like Him!

Now, about walking in the spirit: What does it mean

to walk by the spirit and how do we walk by the
spirit?

To walk by the spirit is for us to surrender our spirit

to the Holy Spirit and walk according to how God
wants us to live. There is a general way that God
wants us to live that is revealed in the Scriptures,
and there is a specific way that God wants us to live
in each situation as the Holy Spirit prompts us. The
Holy Spirit can only lead us if we follow. We can only
follow if our spirit man is in control. The Holy Spirit
doesn‟t take control of our mind and body and force
us to serve him and live for him and live by the fruit
of the Spirit and operate by the gifts of the Spirit. We
have to surrender ourselves to the Holy Spirit. We
have to give him control but we cannot give him
control if we are controlled by our mind or body! If
your mind and body are in control, it means your
spirit is not in control. So even if you wanted to
follow the Holy Spirit, you couldn‟t. The degree to
which we‟re not walking by the Holy Spirit is the
degree to which our mind and body are in control. If
our spirit could just be in control 100%, then it would
have no problem surrendering 100% to the Holy
Spirit. But our mind and our body get in the way.

Now our body and our mind are not evil. They are not
bad. They are a part of who we are. They are our
servants. When God created them, he created them
good! But then corruption came in and affected all
three parts of us. Through salvation, God instantly
fixed our spirit. But he didn‟t fix our mind or body,
that is happening and will happen. But our mind and
body are not evil. Our mind and our body are
incredible! God loves them. He loves all of us. He
doesn‟t just love our spirit yet hate our body and
mind. We must not hate our body and mind either! We
just need to understand them, how they work and
how they don‟t naturally want to follow God. We have
to teach and train them to.

David said, “My heart and my flesh cry out for the
living God.” Our flesh actually enjoys God‟s
presence. But it also enjoys sin. It‟s important to
understand that our flesh doesn‟t make moral
decisions. It just senses things that feel good and
wants to do them again, and it feels things that are
bad and doesn‟t want to do them again. In order to
get fit you need to overcome your body. It wants to
stop when it gets exhausted but in order to get fit
you need to tell it to keep going. Eventually your
body will thank you because it enjoys the benefits of
being fit. But you had to force it against its natural
tendency. Sex, whether right or wrong feels good to
the body. It doesn‟t know the difference. It‟s your
mind and spirit that knows the difference. The
unrenewed mind says that sexual sin is OK. The
recreated spirit says, “No, it is wrong”. Now if we
just let our body follow all its appetites for sex, it
would lead us into serious trouble! If we still have
worldly thinking when it comes to sex and are led by
our mind, it will also lead us into trouble. However, if
we are led by our spirit, we will know what is right
by the Spirit of God even if our body wants to do it
and if our mind says it‟s OK. Our spirit will lead us
into righteousness and keep us from trouble!
Temptation appeals to our body and our mind, not
our spirit. The enemy doesn‟t try and attack our
spirit. He knows he can‟t touch it, it is hidden in
Christ. But he knows he can still attack our body and
mind so he tempts them. If our spirit is not in
ascendancy then we will easily give into temptation.
The more in control our spirit is, the easier it is to
resist temptation because even if our mind and flesh
want to give in, our spirit says “NO!”

Smith Wigglesworth used to say that he‟s a thousand

times bigger on the inside than on the outside. He
understood the importance of empowering his spirit
to reign over his body and mind. The Bible says we
do that by encountering God, soaking in his presence
and the word of his grace, revelation of the word of
God, meditation on the word of God, encounters with
God through the word, good preaching on the word of
God, preaching that releases the Spirit of God, and
praying in tongues. The dominance of our spirit is
determined by how much we feed ourselves
spiritually or starve ourselves. It‟s amazing how good
you feel after a great preach on a Sunday. You feel
strong and refreshed. People even say things like,
“We don‟t need lunch today, we have already had a
great meal!” You walk out of church feeling great:
Like you can take on the demands of life with ease
and flow through life effortlessly and slap temptation
in the face! It doesn‟t take long before you feel weak
again, and the demands of life creep back in and sin
seems too easy to give into. Why is that? Because
we didn‟t continue to feed on spiritual food! We went
back into the world and were fed by natural worldly
things. Now if life surrounds us with worldly
circumstances that are unavoidable, that‟s OK. It
just means there‟s all the more reason to stay
spiritually fed so that we will be stronger to deal
with the onslaught of worldly thinking and behavior.
Our spirits will stay in a place of greater influence
over us and we‟ll be able to walk with the Holy Spirit
through the most testing of circumstances.

Whether we like it or not, our mind is constantly

being exposed to worldliness. It comes through the
radio, TV, movies, advertising, worldly people all
around us, etc. Not all of it is bad, yet much of it is.
Whether this worldliness affects us or not is a matter
of our level of maturity in Christ.

What is worldliness? It‟s the lies of the devil setting

themselves up against the knowledge of the truth of
Jesus Christ. All of creation points to Christ. The
devil‟s chief goal is to distract people‟s attention
away from Christ. That‟s why 2 Corinthians 4:4 says:
“The god of this world has blinded the minds of
unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the
gospel of the glory of Christ.” Worldliness is the
devil‟s attempt to distract people from God and fill
their minds with the importance of other things!
Advertising says that possessions are most
important for your life. I live in Hong Kong where the
biggest idol is money. Society is geared and
obsessed from birth to old age with making lots of
money. Somehow the devil has been able to
convince precious Chinese people that the most
important thing in life is making money. That lie is
robbing so many people of experiencing the Creator
of the heavens and earth who has infinite wealth!
Certain movies and certain people tell you that sex,
or having a girlfriend or boyfriend is the most
important thing in life, and so we pursue those things
rather than God, who ultimately, and who only, can
truly satisfy! Some people‟s prime objective in life is
to accumulate power and prestige. They seek that
rather than the very God who could give them more
power than they could handle and who could and
wants to make their name great!

Why is it like this? Because the devil is at work

trying to distract people away from God and keep
them busy with other things so that they don‟t even
realize they have been distracted from God! He
doesn‟t just stop at unbelievers, he targets believers
as well. Every day we have to wade through a
marshland of worldly thinking trying to take us under
and consume us. Even though we are in this world
we are not of this world. We are from above. We are
citizens of heaven and are to fix our mind and our
eyes on eternal things and things above rather than
on temporary and earthly things. Having our minds
renewed means we recognize and know how to
process worldly thoughts and lies and distractions
constantly barraging against us. An unrenewed mind
is a mind that agrees with worldly thinking. A
renewed mind is a mind that agrees with God‟s
thoughts and rejects anything that contradicts them.
You can‟t stop worldly thinking coming at you, but a
renewed mind knows how to process it and not feed
on it! It knows how to take captive every thought
and make it obedient to Jesus Christ and true truth.
A renewed mind recognizes the difference between
worldly wisdom and godly wisdom which is true
wisdom. Only God is wise. He makes the wisdom of
man look foolish.

The more our mind is renewed and the more we walk

by the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth, the more we‟ll
be able to tell the difference between worldly
wisdom and godly wisdom.

So many of our problems are because we feed our

mind on the wrong things, and we starve our spirit of
the right things. If we were to feed less on worldly
thinking and feed more on awesome spiritual food,
we would find our spirit rising into ascendancy and
control over our body and mind. We‟d have the ability
to surrender total control to the Holy Spirit and find
that He is more active and powerful in our whole life;
spirit, mind and body.
Jesus went into the wilderness full of the Spirit and
came out in the power of the Spirit. What happened
to take Him from being full of the Spirit to being in
the power of the Spirit? Three things: He fasted, was
tempted by the devil and was led by the Spirit.
Fasting was to gain total ascendancy over his body
and teach it who was boss. Temptation came
against his mind and body and the more he resisted
the more it showed that he was gaining ascendancy
over his mind and body. And he was being led by the
Holy Spirit. We know that that could only happen if
he was in control of his spirit and surrendering it to
the Holy Spirit. The fact that he was being led shows
that he was surrendering control of his spirit to the
Holy Spirit, which means He had control of his spirit.
That means his spirit was in ascendancy over his
mind and body. So for forty days Jesus was walking
in the wilderness by the Holy Spirit with his spirit in
ascendancy over his body and mind. It says that he
was praying and fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit
for that time. That means that he was feeding his
spirit for forty days on awesome spiritual food. His
spirit finally came into such a place of ascendancy
that the Bible says he came out of the desert in the
power of the Spirit. Temptation was easy to resist
and the power of God easily flowed through him. He
moved with the Holy Spirit and was able to do all
that the Father wanted him to do!

Does this mean that we need to spend forty days in

the desert? No, but there‟s a principle about walking
in the spirit that we need to catch.

So when we talk about walking in the spirit and

undergoing the process of sanctification, it‟s
important to understand the relationship between
our spirit, mind and body and how they work, and
how our spirit can gain and live in ascendancy over
our mind and body. That‟s why I started this book
with this chapter. I hope it has been helpful. It‟s a
great foundation to now start talking about
regeneration and sanctification and means we will
understand them so much better. Before we do,
here‟s a chart to help you visually see what I‟ve been
talking about.

Part of By By Our
us salvation sanctification current
affected status

Has Event Eternal

Spirit happened. heavenly
(Past) Position

Is happening. Process Current

Soul/ (Current) earthly
mind condition

Will happen. Process Current

(Future) earthly
Body condition
Chapter 2: Regeneration.

Empowered for Sanctification!

When the Bible speaks of regeneration, or being

„born again‟, it is speaking specifically about the
effect salvation has on our inner being, our spirit.
Once regeneration takes place your spirit is
completely different. It is no longer part of the old
creation fallen order. It becomes a part of the new
creation perfect order. Everything changes in your
spirit!

Have you seen your salvation?

I believe that the cause of so much of the legalism

and control in the church today comes from a failure
in „seeing our salvation‟. If you haven‟t seen your
salvation then you haven‟t seen that your spirit has
been made perfect and complete in Christ and that
nothing else needs to take place. Unfortunately
many haven‟t seen that so they‟re busy trying to
complete their salvation. They‟re trying to complete
their righteousness, complete their holiness,
complete their death to old self, complete their
worthiness to receive blessings from the Father,
complete their right to come boldly before God and
so on.

The more you see your salvation by looking at

regeneration, the more you will see how all these
things have already been completed in your spirit.
Consequently faith will come into your heart to
cause you to live out, on earth, all that has already
happened to your spirit in Christ!

So let‟s look at this issue of regeneration:

What is the state of a person‟s spirit before they are

born again compared to after they are born again?

In this chapter I want to analyze a few scriptures

and have a look at the difference.

But first here‟s a table to help you see the difference

by visual comparison.
Comparison of our spirit before and after
regeneration:

Spirit before Spirit Sinful Sin Law Wants Doesn‟t Cannot Object
regeneration: dead nature driving external: to sin. want to keep of
to present from the commanding, and God‟s God‟s
God. and inside. condemning can‟t law. wrath.
controlling. and exposing bear
internal sin fruit
problem. unto
God.

Spirit after Spirit Sinful Sin Law internal Doesn‟t Wants Is Object
regeneration: alive nature tempting now in the want to to and credited of
to gone. from the form of a sin. Sin can with God‟s
God. outside new nature. is bear fully love.
now. God‟s nature. foreign. fruit keeping
unto God‟s
God. law.

Let‟s look at some scriptures to back this up.

Ephesians 2:1-6

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions

and sins, in which you used to live when you
followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of
the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work
in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived
among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of
the sinful nature and following its desires and
thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of
wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who
is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when
we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you
have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ
and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in
Christ Jesus… for we are God‟s workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God
prepared in advance for us to do.”

Characteristics of an unregenerate person in this

scripture:

1) Spiritually dead to God and living in

transgressions and sins.
2) Following the ways of this world.
3) Disobedient and under the influence of Satan.
4) Following the desires and thoughts of the sinful
nature and gratifying its cravings.
5) Objects of God‟s wrath.

Characteristics of a regenerate person in this

scripture:

1) Made alive with Christ Jesus.

2) Seated with Christ in the heavenly realms.
3) God‟s workmanship.
4) Recreated in Christ and empowered by Christ for
good works, destined by God for us to do.
Romans 7:4-6

“So, my brothers, you also died to the law through

the body of Christ, that you might belong to another,
to him who was raised from the dead, in order that
we might bear fruit to God. For when we were
controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions
aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so
that we bore fruit for death. But now by dying to
what once bound us, we have been released from the
law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit,
and not in the old way of the written code.”

Characteristics of an unregenerate person in these

scriptures:

1) Controlled and bound by the sinful nature.

2) Under the law.
3) Sinful passions at work in the body aroused by
the law, because of the sinful nature.
4) Bore fruit for death.

Characteristics of a regenerate person in these

scriptures:
 1) Died and released from the sinful nature.
2) Released from the law and all service to God
according to the law (Old way).
3) Spirit empowered to serve God through grace
(New way).

Basically our spirits are completely different now

that we are saved. The old has gone and the new has
come. We are new creations, and God says it is
good!

Before you were saved your spirit inside you was

alive, but it was dead to God. Then, inside your spirit,
attached to it, was a sinful nature. The sinful nature
was a parasite that had moved in and had taken
control of you and induced its nature onto yours. So
the sinful nature became your nature. Or you could
say that your fallen nature was a sinful nature. I
would describe that as an internal sin problem! It‟s
been the problem of mankind since Adam and Eve.
It‟s the cause of all the trouble in this world. People
blame God but actually it‟s them. They have an
internal problem called the sinful nature. They can
try to disguise it by doing a lot of good things in this
world but no matter how much good they do or try to
do, they still have this internal problem of the sinful
nature that ultimately causes their hearts to be
rebellious towards God. That will continually keep
manifesting in one way or another throughout their
lives and all those manifestations are called sin!
However, it isn‟t the sin that makes them sinners.
They sin because internally they are sinners,
because internally they have a sinful nature that was
passed on to them by Adam. There is no way that
God just turns a blind eye to the masses of humanity
with this internal sin problem and says: “That‟s fine,
just let that sin nature dominate you. Live how you
want and then welcome to heaven.” Firstly, God‟s
justice demands penalty for sin and perfect holiness
for entrance into eternal perfection. And also in his
compassion he doesn‟t want to leave people in a
state where they are dominated by that evil nature of
Satan. So he did something about it. What did he do?
Well it would seem obvious to most Christians that
he dealt with it by the cross and the gift of
righteousness that comes through Jesus. However,
many Christians get a bit confused here and
somehow think that the law also plays a part. Either
they think that the law came to give us a righteous
standard to live up to, and by doing so we earn
salvation, or they think that although the law was
not given to get you saved, now that you are saved
you need to prove that salvation by keeping the law
or you are in danger of losing it. They think of the
law as a guardian over you making sure you‟re good
and correcting you if you‟re bad. Either way, they are
completely wrong.

God never gave the law to try and control or fix the
internal sin problem. He gave it to expose the
internal sin problem. The law cannot fix the internal
sin problem because the sinful nature actually
thrives on the law! The law doesn‟t kill the sinful
nature, it empowers it! As soon as law comes, the
sinful nature says break it! And because it is in
control, guess what your body does? It obeys the
sinful nature! Saying that the law was given to
control or fix the internal problem of the sinful nature
is like saying to a man who looks at his face in a
mirror to discover that it is dirty, that he must now
take the mirror and clean his face with it. That is a
ridiculous thing to say, let alone do! The mirror only
exposes the problem. It can‟t fix it. You need soap
and that soap is the blood of Jesus shed for us on
the cross and the life transforming power that comes
from that!
The law was only ever given to expose that man has
an internal sin problem and just how powerless he is
to fix it himself.

Romans 7:7

“What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly

not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was
except through the law. For I would not have known
what coveting really was if the law had not said, „Do
not covet.”

This scripture shows the sole purpose of the law: To

reveal and expose sin! But what about a scripture
that takes it even further and shows us that keeping
the law cannot make us righteous before God at all?

Romans 3:20

“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his

sight by observing the law; rather, through the law
we become conscious of sin.”

And again it shows the purpose of the law. To bring a

consciousness in us of the state of our sin before a
holy and just God, who condemns and judges sin.

Basically it‟s the law‟s job to strip us of all self

righteousness, and reveal to us our desperate need
of salvation. Once it has done that and we come into
Christ, the law becomes redundant.

Galatians 3:24-25

“The law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that

we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has
come, we are no longer under the supervision of the
law.”

If the law is used to try and control sin then it ends

up provoking sin. But, if it is used to expose sin, then
it reveals sin in you and condemns you by stripping
you of all self righteousness and leaves you helpless
before God, who is the holy judge. Therefore people‟s
only hope is Jesus. Only He can „fix‟ people.

The law cannot and does not fix the sin problem or
bring righteousness. No, it exposes the sin problem
by showing how unrighteous we are and how
desperate our need for Gods righteousness is.

Sadly, many Christians are very confused about all

this. Many think we still have a sinful nature and are
still under the law! So they are trying to control
something they don‟t have, by using something they
are no longer under. In other words they are trying to
control (or die to) a sinful nature they don‟t have, by
using God‟s law that they are no longer under! That‟s
called sanctification by law and it‟s totally weak and
useless!

Sanctification by grace says you don‟t have to die to

the sinful nature because you have already died to it
and have been given a new righteous nature.
Therefore you no longer need external laws to
expose or control an internal problem because you
no longer have an internal problem! Instead you have
a new nature that wants to live for God because it
has the very desires and law of God written on it!

It‟s amazing that people think the law can somehow

control or fix the sin problem! Preachers mix a bit of
law in with grace to try and control sin in their
congregations. They argue: “Well if we just preach
grace then people will just feel free to go out and sin
because they know that they will be forgiven, but if
they believe that God will punish them and judge
them for sin, then that will hinder them from
sinning.” To think that the law was meant to do that
is just plain bad theology. It can‟t! The law was given
to reveal sin by provoking sin.

Romans 7:8
“…but sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the
commandment, produced in me every kind of
covetous desire.”

Basically the sinful nature inside of people (before

salvation) is aroused by the law (commandment). So
when they hear, „Do not covet‟, well now all of a
sudden that is exactly what they feel like doing.
Before the law came, they didn‟t really feel like
coveting, but now that the law has come, they
actually want to covet because the sinful nature has
been provoked.

When you put law on a Christian, it doesn‟t provoke

the sinful nature, since they don‟t have one. Instead,
putting law on Christians drives them further away
from God. I don‟t believe that law necessarily stirs
up sin in the born again believer. Instead, I believe
that the law drives the believer further and further
away from God, and the further you are away from
God, the easier it is to give into sin. Putting the law
back on Christians will result in them feeling far from
God and seriously struggling with sin and struggling
even harder to feel accepted and loved by God. It
will also fill their mind with a sin consciousness that
will keep them in condemnation. You cannot live in
condemnation and close to God at the same time,
neither can you live in victory over sin if you‟re not
living close to God. Grace empowers us to live close
to God. So if preachers are using the law to try and
control sin in their congregation, the end result will
be that their congregation will increasingly live
further away from God and sin more!

Every Christian sins to some degree, whether small

or big. And of course we‟re all working through that
because our desire is truly to not sin. The thing is
that‟s not going to happen as long as we have a sin
consciousness and are struggling under
condemnation. Condemnation robs us of our
confidence to come before God. It‟s only truly in and
by His presence that you and I will be transformed
more and more to be like Him in all of who we are.
Grace, true grace, brings and keeps us in a
consciousness of righteousness that empowers us
with confidence to come into God‟s presence at any
time to see Him face to face and be strengthened by
Him to overcome. The more we live in and by grace,
the closer we will live to God, and the closer we live
to God, the less we will sin. The more people come
under law, the further they will live from God, and
the further they live from God, the easier it is to just
give into sin. That‟s why it is so unhelpful for
Christians to put law on Christians. Justification
happens by grace and so does sanctification. Neither
can happen by the law!

Now, let‟s just go back to the state of your spirit

before regeneration. Your spirit was dead to God but
alive to sin because of the sinful nature living in it.
Sin was on the inside controlling and driving you, and
the law was on the outside barking commands at
you, unable to control sin, but seeking to expose it.
Sin on the inside of you would rise up to defy those
commands and therefore would expose that internal
problem, which the external law was powerless to
fix.

And that‟s why regeneration is so wonderful!

Because of it, all of that changed! At the point of
faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit took our spirit and
baptized it into Christ. At that point we were
instantly united with Christ in his crucifixion (death),
burial, resurrection and even his ascension!
Because we were united with Christ in his death, it
means that our old self died. And then was buried
with him (Romans 6).

That‟s more powerful than you realize! Your old self,

which was dead to God but alive to sin, died and was
buried! That means that your spirit and everything in
it died and was buried including your sinful nature!
Then God raised your spirit up together with Christ
into a new life. That‟s when our spirits were made
alive in Christ and we became new creations! That
means a new nature! God didn‟t resurrect the sinful
nature and put it back in you. That was the whole
point of you being crucified with Christ, to get rid of
that foul thing! To release you from the control of
that nature, and to bring you under the influence of
another nature, a new nature, God‟s nature. 2 Peter
1:4 says that we are partakers in the divine nature!
That doesn‟t make us divine it just means that we
have His divine nature infused in our spirit.

God‟s desires, God‟s will, God‟s passion, God‟s

character, God‟s righteousness, God‟s justice etc.
are now on the inside of your spirit! That‟s the new
nature. Hebrews 8 and 10 talk about the new
covenant that God will make with his people where
he will write His laws on their hearts and put them in
their minds! That‟s talking about a new nature! It‟s
not talking about a reminder to keep the law or else
suffer punishment. It‟s talking about an empowering
God-nature on the inside of people‟s spirits that
doesn‟t need to be told to keep the law, but has a
desire to live out perfect righteousness. God isn‟t
trying to put restraint on us, He put restraint in us!
Do you think anyone has to say to God that He
shouldn‟t steal or lie or commit adultery? That‟s a
ridiculous statement! No one needs to say those
things to God because those things are so foreign to
His nature. No one should have to say to a born
again believer: “You shouldn‟t steal or lie or commit
adultery.” Why? Because their new nature doesn‟t
want to do those things. It wants to live holy and
righteous for God! The spirit of a Christian is not
looking for a way to get away with sin. Sin is foreign
to the new nature of a Christian!

That‟s why you can teach grace in its fullness and

not have to mix it with external law. That‟s why you
don‟t have to be scared that if you preach grace it
may cause Christians to feel like they‟re allowed to
just run out and sin.
Sanctification is not about trying to put restraint on
Christians. The restraints being: “If you sin, God will
punish you.” or “If you sin enough, you will lose your
salvation.” or “If you go too far into sin, then you may
end up choosing sin over God thereby rejecting your
faith and losing your salvation.” That‟s the option
preachers take who haven‟t seen their salvation
properly. This type of teaching really has to stop
because it‟s not helping Christians. True
sanctification is about helping people understand
what has happened in their spirit at the point of
salvation that changed their spirit to be like God, and
then helping them to live by their new spirit, ruling
over their mind and their body, with the help of the
Holy Spirit in all three parts.

Born again Christians don‟t really want to go out and

just sin. They truly want to go out and live holy lives
and reign over sin rather than sin reigning over them!
Why? Because God has changed their nature. Let me
ask you a question: If you could flick a switch that
would completely stop every sin in your life, would
you flick that switch? Someone not born again
wouldn‟t flick that switch because they are reserving
places in their life for sin, because sin is still living in
them. Someone born again would have no hesitation
flicking that switch (especially those who struggle
the most with sin) because they‟ve died to sin
(Romans 6:1). In fact we would all love a switch like
that and many are actually looking for one! But there
is no switch like that because we live in a world of
temptation and the only way to switch that off is to
exit this world! Why would we flick that switch?
Because the new nature inside of us doesn‟t want to
sin! The old sinful nature did want to sin. But our
new nature wants to live absolutely righteously for
God. Now if a Christian could live completely by their
spirit, and the new nature that is in their spirit, and
not be influenced by the worldly parts of their mind
that hasn‟t been renewed yet, or by their body that
still and will always have appetites, then their spirit
would lead them into absolute righteousness,
holiness, obedience to God and total fruitfulness to
Him 100% of the time! It would not lead them into sin
because sin is not in their spirit!

Christians do still sin. Does that mean they still have

a sinful nature? Unfortunately that‟s the deduction
that people make that is confusing so many people!
That if we sin, or still feel like sinning, then it must
mean that we still have a sinful nature inside of us
driving us toward sin. That is such a flawed
statement. It‟s in no way theological. It‟s a deduction
made purely from experience and not based at all on
the Bible. Just because we still might sin or feel like
sinning doesn‟t mean that we still have a sinful
nature. It simply means we still feel temptation and
it appeals to us.

What does temptation appeal to? It appeals to the

body and the mind. Not the spirit. Your spirit has
been made perfect, in perfect righteousness, with a
new nature that hates sin. However, our mind and
our body are not yet made perfect and that means
they‟re vulnerable to temptation. Our spirit is not
vulnerable because it is hidden in Christ so the devil
doesn‟t even try to attack us there. He goes for the
mind and the body. Adam and Eve were created
without a sinful nature, but with a God-nature within
their spirits. However it was still possible for them to
be tempted and feel temptation and even give in to
temptation. So to say that by not having a sinful
nature we wouldn‟t sin or feel temptation, is wrong.
Jesus was born in the flesh, yet without a sinful
nature, and the Bible says he was tempted in all
ways just like us. That means temptation appealed
to his flesh and his mind but he didn‟t give in to it.

The major point I am making here is about the

change that has taken place in our spirit. Before you
were saved, sin was on the inside of you trying to get
out, now that you are saved, sin is on the outside
trying to get in. One is internal and driving. The other
is external and drawing. The reason why Christians
sin is not because they have a sinful nature on the
inside of them driving them into sin, but because
they give into temptation that is luring them from the
outside appealing to their mind and body to sin.

Let‟s take another look at my comparison table of

the spirit before regeneration and after regeneration.
Before we are born again our spirit is dead to God
but alive to sin. It‟s the internal sin problem. Law
comes on the outside and is powerless to produce
righteousness in us because the sinful nature is
controlling us and keeping us from obeying the law.
Therefore the law stirs up sin in us and reveals a
serious problem inside of us.

Then we get born again. So what happens is that our

old self dies, therefore also killing the sinful nature
(Romans 6:6, Colossians 2:11-14), and God then
brings us back to life as a new creation and gives us
a new nature that is His nature with His laws written
on that nature (Hebrews 8 and 10).

He deals with the internal sin problem by crucifying

our spirit with Christ and removing the sinful nature,
and then by resurrecting our spirit in Christ giving us
a new nature in our reborn spirit. Oh that is
AWESOME!

Now have a look at this: before we were born again,

sin was internal and law was external. After being
born again sin is external and law is internal. Before
Christ, the sinful nature in us wanted to express
itself through us as sin, and law was external and
powerless to control it. Now, in Christ, the new
nature in us wants to express itself through us as
righteousness. God‟s perfect law is a part of that
nature, not holding us to account or supervising us
but empowering us with God‟s desires and nature.
No longer do we need external law telling us what to
do. Now we have a new internal drive that wants to
lead us into absolute righteousness.
Now just because this has all happened in our spirit
at the point of salvation it doesn‟t mean that it will
automatically control our lives. Something powerful
has happened on the inside of us but now it‟s up to
us how we take advantage of that. Basically God has
destroyed the life force of sin in our lives. He‟s also
given control back to us by putting some powerful
stuff in us, that if we lived totally by, would manifest
in absolute righteousness, obedience and
fruitfulness to God. BUT he doesn‟t live our life for
us! We are in this world, but not of this world,
nevertheless we are still in this world! Even though
we are citizens of heaven and our spirit is seated in
heavenly places and hidden in Christ and perfect in
Christ, our spirit still lives in our body that has
appetites which can get out of control. It also has a
mind that didn‟t change at salvation which needs to
be renewed by you subjecting it to the truth of the
word of God. Therefore the process of sanctification
is all about tapping into what has happened in our
spirit and making it manifest through our body and
mind! And the more you see your salvation the easier
that will be.
Before I talk about the process of sanctification I
want to spend a whole chapter talking about the
starting point of sanctification. We‟ve already
covered a lot of it, but there is no way I‟m going to
go on and talk about the process of sanctification if
we are not absolutely secure in the event of
sanctification first! There is a starting place for
sanctification that so many people miss and because
of that Christians get butchered! I‟m tired of
Christians getting kicked around and whipped by ill
informed teachers of the Word that don‟t understand
regeneration and the event of sanctification. So let‟s
talk about the event of sanctification.
Chapter 3: The starting point of Sanctification.

The event that changed our eternal position

Sanctification is two things: It‟s an event and it‟s a

process. It starts with an event and then continues
in a process. The process can only happen after the
event and proceeds out of it. The process doesn‟t
make the event possible. It‟s an event first, and that
makes the process possible! Any sanctification
teaching that does not originate from this
understanding will inevitably start off in the wrong
place and will devastate Christians by bringing them
back under law (no matter how subtle), and placing
on them a cloak of death. Any sanctification
teaching that says you need to live a certain way
otherwise you are in danger of losing your salvation
is law. It‟s a gospel that says: “The Gospel is good
news as long as you keep your end of the deal. If you
don‟t, you fail to keep your salvation and go to hell.”
In other words salvation comes by grace but is kept
through performance or works. That‟s law. That‟s old
covenant, not new covenant. That produces
miserable and defeated Christians and puts them
under a ministry of death which robs them of true
encounters with the God of glory. His presence alone
empowers the process of true sanctification in their
lives. “Well then how do I stop Christians from
sinning?” That‟s not your job! Our job is not to try and
put restraint on Christians, but to help Christians to
live by their reborn spirit. If you try to put Christians
under restraint through fear tactics and conditional
Christianity that is based on performance, (which
really is law) you‟ll put a cloak of death on them and
destroy any chance they have of living a
supernatural Christian life that flows from deep
intimacy with God.

The old covenant is all about our performance and

how it is directly linked to whether God blesses us or
curses us! Therefore it‟s a covenant of death
because it‟s impossible for anyone to keep it
perfectly! Galatians 3 says that all those who rely on
keeping the law are under a curse because cursed is
everyone who does not continue to do everything
written in the law.

The new covenant is all about how God saves us

based purely on Christ‟s performance for us and not
one bit based on our performance. If that covenant
went on to say that now that you are saved, you
need to perform in order to keep your salvation, then
it would cease to be New Covenant and would have
reverted back to Old Covenant. A covenant based on
works and not faith! No, the New Covenant is based
solely on Christ‟s performance on our behalf. It starts
that way and finishes that way. The Bible says it‟s a
righteousness that is based on faith from first to last
(Romans 1:17). It is not a righteousness that is first
based on faith and then based on works.

Much sanctification teaching subtly puts this

requirement of works on people. The danger is not in
the explicit obvious legalism but in the implied
requirement for works. Many Christians wouldn‟t fall
for a lie that says, “Now that you‟re saved you need
to perform in order to keep your salvation.” They
would recognize that as legalism straight away.
Unfortunately many Christians do fall for the lie that
says you need to perform and be holy in order for
God to bless you, to please God and to avoid God‟s
judgments and punishments. Their effort to be
sanctified becomes all about trying to please God,
keep him happy, stay in the blessing and avoid being
cursed! “The less I sin the more God will be happy
with me and treat me like his child and let me into
his blessings.” This is the the way many Christians
think and it‟s HORRIFYING!

There is an epidemic in the body of Christ throughout

the world and it‟s called legalism. It has kept the
church from truly encountering God‟s presence and
has put it on a performance based treadmill of trying
to earn God‟s blessings and avoid His curses. It has
changed the way we see God and how we approach
God. It perverts the way we see ourselves in God‟s
eyes. It‟s a gospel full of thorns and nasty surprises.
Many preach either explicitly or implicitly, that now
that you‟re saved, to keep God happy and enable God
to bless you, you must go to church every Sunday, go
to prayer meetings, read your Bible and pray every
day, witness,Bible tithe, give offerings, care for
people etc. If you don‟t do these things well, then
you tie God‟s hands and He can‟t bless you and in
fact you will basically be a disappointment to God.
He will tolerate you but he will not be happy with
you. It‟s sickening. The fact is that as a believer I
want to do all those things. It‟s in my heart to do
them. I see the value in doing them. But never ever
do I do them to earn God‟s blessings and approval. I
already have His blessing and approval. I do these
things from a place of God‟s blessings and approval!
God has already blessed me in the heavenly realms
in Christ Jesus with every blessing. Now I‟m going
around manifesting that blessing in the earthly realm
as I simply believe it. God is 100% happy with me,
accepts me and approves of me. I don‟t have to
(can‟t) earn his acceptance. I have already received
it. I don‟t have to (can‟t) earn his blessings. I already
have them! I‟m living from a place of blessing and
approval. Before Jesus did a single thing for the
Father, God ripped opened the heavens and boomed
down in a mighty voice saying, “This is my son,
whom I love. With him I am well pleased.” Before you
do a single thing for God he booms down with the
same voice saying, “You are my child, whom I love.
With you I am well pleased.” Why? Because we are in
Christ! Christians have got to realize that even if
they never did another thing for God for the rest of
their entire life, God would still say over them, “You
are my child, whom I love, and with you I am well
pleased.” Our minds get so corrupted with legalistic
teaching that we find it hard to believe. But it‟s true!
That needs to be your starting place before you try
and do anything for God. God never drives or forces
us. He empowers and draws us. True sanctification
never drives people. It empowers people. Now
sometimes a true prophet might have to stand up
with the fire of God in his mouth and challenge
Christians. That‟s not driving, that‟s blasting off all
the distracting stuff which has built up in people‟s
minds and is suffocating and restricting the true
passions and desires that are in their spirit from
coming out. It helps to shake Christians out of a
place where they have allowed themselves to sink
under all the distractions of life. I‟ve experienced
that many times and I‟ve been so grateful for the
boldness of the prophet because my spirit
unquestionably wants to live passionately for God all
the time! A prophet absolutely must be grounded in
grace or they will abuse God‟s people. In fact we all
need to be thoroughly washed by grace and an
understanding of the new covenant that is based on
better promises!

Thank God there is a grace revolution that is truly

sweeping through the earth. Many are hearing the
sound and coming right out of old covenant death
and fading glory and coming completely into new
covenant life and ever increasing glory! Along with
that is coming a simple but powerful revelation of
true regeneration and true sanctification.
Sanctification that starts in the right place!

It is essential to thoroughly understand the event of

sanctification, before you go on to look at the
process.

Hebrews 10:14 says that; “by one sacrifice He has

made perfect forever all those who are being made
holy (sanctified).”

“Has made perfect” is the event of sanctification

that happened to your spirit, bringing it into absolute
perfect standing before God eternally. That‟s our
eternal position in Christ.

“Being made holy” is the process of sanctification

that happens in your body and mind, where we live
out the holiness that we‟ve been brought into in our
spirit. That‟s our current condition on this earth.

The event of sanctification separated our spirit unto

God and the process of sanctification is where our
spirit lives out that life through our body and mind,
causing our condition to look more and more like our
position. Sanctification is actually a lifestyle. It‟s a
life lived separated unto God, because it is
separated unto God.

Just before we go on to the next chapter, I want to

look quickly at some of the „-tions‟ of our salvation.
This will help us see exactly what happened at the
event of sanctification and what takes place in the
process of sanctification.

What are they? These are all things that happened to

us in our spirit at the point of salvation. There are
arguments about exactly how many there are,
however there are 5 that I want to talk about.

 Justification
 Adoption
 Redemption
 Regeneration
 Sanctification

All of these help us to understand the point at which

we start the process of sanctification because they
tell us what happened in us at the event of
sanctification. I‟ve drawn up a graph that helps you
to see the effect that each one has already had on
your spirit, is having on your mind and body, and will
finally have on your mind and body when you are
brought into completion upon glorification (1
Corinthians 15).

The „-tions‟ of our salvation:

What „tion‟? Did it happen in Is it happening in Is it completed in Explanation.
our spirit? our body and our body and mind
mind? at glorification?
We were eternally
Justification Yes No No justified from the
point of faith in
Christ.
The final
Adoption Yes No Yes installment of
adoption is the
redemption of our
bodies.
Manifesting in our
body and mind
Redemption Yes Yes Yes what has been
given to our spirit.
Made perfect in
body and mind at
glorification.
Body and mind
Regeneration Yes No Yes finally made
perfect at
glorification.
Spirit eternally set
Sanctification Yes No No apart from point of
event. faith in Christ.
Can‟t be any more
set apart.
Process of our
mind and body
finally completed
Sanctification No Yes Yes and ultimately all
process. of who we are will
be set apart for
God at
glorification.

Being separated unto God means that we were taken out of Godless
things and brought into Godly things.

Each „-tion‟ affected us in different ways with regards to what they

brought us out of and what they brought us into.
 „-tion‟: Out of: Into:

Condemned for sins Justified of sins

Justification Unrighteousness Righteousness

Pending eternal wrath (death) Total forgiveness and eternal life

Orphans Sons

Beggars King‟s kids

Adoption
No inheritance Heirs of God

Wrath of God The love of the Father

Law Grace

Curse Blessing

Redemption Darkness Light

Slavery Freedom

Sickness Divine health

Defeated by our enemies Victory over enemies

Poverty Unlimited resources of heaven

Dead to God Alive to God

Regeneration
Under the control of sinful nature New nature, circumcised of
the sinful nature

Citizens of the kingdom of Citizens of heaven

darkness

Separation from God Separated unto God. Seated with

Christ. Hidden in Christ

Sanctification event Satan‟s control The Lordship of the King of kings

Co-heir with Christ

The world In this world but not of this world

Sin‟s penalty, presence and Forgiven, sin removed,
power circumcised,

Corruption Made perfect

Chapter 4: Being Sanctified.

The process that changes our current condition.

There is so much that could be said in this chapter

about the process of sanctification. There are so
many different interpretations of scripture when it
comes to it, yet I really don‟t want to make it a
complicated thing. I‟m so aware of all the things I
could say, but I only want to say the things that God
has put on my heart, for now, about this subject and
hopefully in a way that‟s simple, clear and
empowering.

I want to make it clear that neither I, nor this book,

will sanctify you! So I‟m not writing this chapter
thinking that by the end of it you‟ll be sanctified!
Sanctification is a journey with God and you just
can‟t fit that into a chapter. Sanctification isn‟t a
chapter in your life, it is your life! And it‟s a very
exciting journey in which you get to discover the
greatness that God has put inside of you and how He
wants to draw it out of you.
This isn‟t the final say on sanctification and certainly
won‟t cover every aspect of it. There are aspects
like; the role others play in your sanctification, how
suffering, hardships and trials can help, the role of
washing your mind by the word of God, the breaking
of mental strongholds through the anointed word,
how daily interaction with the Holy Spirit and His
anointing helps in the process of sanctification. I will
touch on some of these topics but I want to focus on
what I believe is the most important thing when it
comes to sanctification.

We need to be so careful when we come to the topic

of sanctification that we don‟t start thinking works
all of a sudden. It‟s not about self effort and
discipline. The way we start thinking works is by
falsely making the deduction that if the event of
sanctification has to do with your spirit, and if the
process of sanctification has to do with your body
and mind, then surely, for the process, we must
focus on our body and mind and trying to change
them? Actually the process of sanctification keeps
its focus on our spirit. Sanctification is about what
flows out of our spirit, not about the disciplines we
apply to our mind and body in an attempt to change
them. “But isn‟t the process about us focusing on
offering our body and renewing our mind?” Actually
it‟s about focusing on how to empower your spirit to
rule through your body and mind. Keep the focus on
your spirit. It‟s your spirit that offers your body and
subjects your mind to renewing, forcing them to
increasingly synchronize to your spirit. A renewed
mind and a conquered body will not fight your spirit
but will flow with and serve your spirit and will be a
delight to you!

Religion will have you focus on the external. Grace is

all about the internal. Religion applies controls to the
external to try and force change to the internal.
Sanctification is about discovering the internal
spiritual transformation and helping that to flow out
to the externals. There are things you can do with
your mind and body (externals) to help the flow, but
if you make the focus your mind and body you will
reverse the flow because it simply doesn‟t work that
way!

Sanctification is about your spirit rising in dominion

and reigning and expressing itself through your mind
and body. It‟s not about applying discipline and rules
to your mind and body in the hope that it will
produce holiness and spirituality in your spirit. That‟s
why, in this chapter, I am not going to give you a
whole list of things to do with your mind and body so
that if you can tick them all off then you are
sanctified! That would be misleading and
disempowering to you. I want to help you to get
empowered, so I‟m going to keep the focus on your
spirit. If I can help in that area of your life, I know
that it will automatically flow over into your mind
and body.

Some people make the deduction that acceptance

grace is for your spirit, making it righteous, while
empowering grace is for your mind and your body
enabling you to walk in that righteousness.

That‟s what many would believe and it‟s almost

correct. But it‟s still getting the focus on the
external rather than the internal. And so there‟s this
big emphasis on your body and mind to live
righteous, reasoning that if you were in true grace,
you would see it in your body and mind. There is an
element of truth in this because I believe the
empowering grace of God does flow to our mind and
body, but it doesn‟t start there. It starts in our spirit.
You receive it in your spirit and then it flows to your
body and mind.

There seems to be too much of a distinction made

between the acceptance grace and the empowering
grace of God. People have dissected grace. Some
say acceptance grace is for justification while
empowering grace is for sanctification. They also
say acceptance grace is what we received when we
first get saved, but now we need to live in
empowering grace. You‟ll hear some preachers say,
“We know about the acceptance grace of God and
that we‟re forgiven and that God will never hold our
sins against us, but Christians still need to...” You
know as soon as you hear that “but you still need
to…” you‟re about to hear a whole bunch of things
you need to do because “the acceptance grace of
God is not enough to live by, you also need the
empowering grace of God.” As soon as I hear the
“but we still need to…”, I immediately, without even
having to think about it, shut down to whatever
they‟re going to say next, because I know it‟s going
to be law dressed up as grace.
If a Christian thinks that acceptance grace is not
enough, then, unfortunately they do not know what
true acceptance grace is.

Acceptance grace is enough because within it is

empowering grace! Empowering grace is not
separate from acceptance grace, it comes out of
acceptance grace.

Titus 2:11 says, “For the grace of God that brings

salvation, has appeared to all man, it teaches us to
say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to
live godly lives…”

The Bible says there that it‟s the grace of God that
teaches us to say no to sin! And that the grace that
teaches us to say no is the exact same grace that
brings salvation!

Now some preach empowering grace as things we

have to do. It‟s to try and move Christians to action.
People who haven‟t seen their salvation (internal
transformation) are continually looking for ways to
apply external pressure to move Christians to action.
They can call it empowering grace all they want, but
it is law dressed up as grace!
If they could just see how acceptance grace and
empowering grace flow from the same source and to
the same destination, their message would change
and they would truly help people. Let me explain:

Acceptance grace is not only for justification, it‟s

also for sanctification. Because of it, through it, and
out of it will come empowering grace! Something
that every believer needs to realize is that
empowering grace is not a concept. Empowering
grace is a person: God! Acceptance grace is what
brings us to Him and continually empowers us to live
close to Him no matter what. As your understanding
of acceptance grace increases, you are empowered
to come to God more and the more you encounter
God the more you are filled with power. People who
encounter God encounter the very person who is
empowering grace. He empowers us to overcome
sin, and He empowers us to love and to do the works
of Jesus and even greater works.

Acceptance grace is what clears the way for you to

come to God and encounter Him. Not encountering
the concept of God, but actually really encountering
God the Father, the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit in
their tangible presence. And as we encounter God,
we are empowered and transformed by Him.

Isaiah 40:31 says that those who wait on the Lord

shall renew their strength. That‟s empowerment from
just being in His presence!

2 Corinthians 3:18 says that as we with unveiled

faces reflect His glory we are being transformed into
His likeness with ever increasing glory that comes
from the Lord. Encounters with Him transform us into
His likeness.

What is that transforming power? His glory. Where

does it come from? Him. Is His glory something that
is separate from Him? No. It is who He is.
Empowerment is His glory. His glory is who He is.
When you encounter Him, you encounter
transforming glory, you encounter empowering
grace! As He encounters your spirit, it will always
overflow to, and have an effect on, your body and
your mind in bringing them closer to Christ likeness.
If you don‟t encounter Him, you don‟t encounter
empowering grace and your body and mind stay the
same. You can try as much as you want in your own
strength but you cannot be transformed into His
likeness without encountering Him in, and through,
His glory. If sanctification teaching is not leading
people to an encounter with God, then it is not
empowering teaching. It‟s external restraint
teaching, and that is religious!

So empowering grace is a person, and acceptance

grace is from that person and is what brings us to
that person. In essence, empowering grace is the
reason for acceptance grace and acceptance grace
is the reason for empowering grace.

Deception creeps in when acceptance grace and

empowering grace get separated, because there will
come a point when it will feel like you have to move
on from one to the other. Some will have you believe
that it should happen like this and that you are
moving on to maturity. That is a big deception facing
believers. Let me tell you, if you just stayed on
acceptance grace for the rest of your life, you‟d be
doing a good thing! The more you teach acceptance
grace, the more you are empowering Christians to
encounter God and live close to Him, and the closer
Christians live to God the more they are empowered
by God! When you preach acceptance grace you are
preaching empowering grace without even realizing
it!

Now let me just say at this point that I‟m not saying
that external disciplines are wrong. Not at all. As
long as you have the right focus, and you don‟t
distort grace, external disciplines can be very
helpful. Your body and mind are your servants, not
your masters. The victory is won in your spirit, but
there are some things in the natural that you can do
that are just wise and helpful. Sometimes your spirit
is so choked up and can‟t move because it‟s being
dominated by the natural appetites of your body and
the carnal/worldly thoughts of your mind. We must
realize the enemy doesn‟t attack our spirit directly,
because he can‟t get to it. He attacks our body and
mind in order to subdue and choke up our spirit so
that we can‟t live by it. He‟ll try and arrange
temptations to your body and mind that are
temporary distractions, but he‟s happier if he can
establish temptations that are permanently around
your life to continually bombard you with temptation
in an effort to bring you into bondage. He‟ll also try
and fill your mind with lies about grace and the
finished work of the cross in order to rob you of
confidence to go to God. Everything he does is about
keeping you out of fellowship with God! He knows
that when you walk in fellowship with God you‟ll find
empowering grace to live a supernatural life. And he
knows what sort of damage that will cause to his
purposes.

So I‟m not against doing external things to help you

grow in God. It‟s OK to mention externals and talk
about disciplines that are helpful. I‟m just saying that
our focus and our hope are not to be in those things.
A greater revelation of grace and encounters with
God will lead you to sort out many of the externals in
your life anyway. God will give you wisdom regarding
what disciplines to practice. God may tell you to do
certain things that are specific for you, that He
wants you to do. For example, He may ask you to
spend an hour with Him every morning. You can‟t put
that on other people and say everyone needs to
spend an hour with God every morning. You can offer
it as advice but to put it on people would be
bondage. God might say to you that He doesn‟t want
you to drink alcohol. You cannot put that on other
people as though that‟s the will of God for everyone,
especially if it was just for you. If you put those
things on others, it just becomes external
manipulation and religion, even if you have their best
interests at heart. It may be good advice that can
help people, but ultimately we want people to hear
from God first. I believe, as best as you can, to try
and make your environment as helpful as possible
and not an obstacle to your relationship with God. If
you struggle with alcohol it would be wise not to put
yourself in those situations where it‟s easy to give in.
If you struggle with credit card debt, perhaps it‟s
time to cut up the credit cards, pay them off as best
as you can and cancel them! If you struggle with
pornography on the internet then it would be wise to
do something about your computer situation. If you
just have open access to internet at home then your
home becomes a battle zone every time you‟re at
home alone! Why would you want to do that to
yourself? It doesn‟t matter how strong you are as a
Christian you‟re going to have a struggle on your
hands. If you don‟t have the access you can‟t be
tempted with it! You could get a spouse or friend to
put codes on the internet that only allow for certain
sites to be accessed.
These are some examples of actions and disciplines
that you can take but heaven forbid that our
Christianity is characterized by our good discipline!
Bill Johnson says, “Our Christianity should not be
characterized by discipline but by passion. I want to
live from passion not discipline.”

That confirms what I‟ve been saying: Discipline is

something we apply externally. Passion is what
emanates from within. Discipline is like a safety net.
When we don‟t feel passionate about doing
something, like praying, we do it by discipline
because we know it‟s important for us and others
that we do pray. But I would rather live from passion
than from discipline. And I‟d rather be known for my
passion than my discipline.

Now a lot of Christian „bad behavior‟ is not due to a

lack of discipline, but a lack of encounter. To correct
the bad behavior many want to give a list of things
Christians need to change, start doing or become.
Too often, they motivate with fear by saying, “If you
don‟t change then God will do this or that to you” or
“If you keep sinning God will punish you” or, “You‟ll
lose your salvation” or, “You‟ll come under curse” or,
“God can‟t bless you‟ etc. That‟s just manipulation
and behavior modification pressure.

The problem isn‟t the bad behavior, it‟s their

relationship with God: It‟s not in a good place. Most
likely because they‟re under law and feel far from
God, guilty and condemned. The further away from
God the easier it is to just give in to sin. The closer
you are to God the harder it is to give in to sin. When
you live close to God, he sorts out your bad
attitudes, anger, pride, lust, doubt, selfishness etc!
It‟s hard to live in his presence and hold onto sin.
The only way you can hold on to sin is to stay out of
his presence. You‟re wasting your time to try and
change people‟s behavior through imposing external
restraints. Rather help them get into the presence of
God. The only way you can do that is by teaching
them grace! Grace ignites the passion in the spirit of
a born again believer to encounter God more. That
passion was put in us the moment we got saved. It
just gets choked by worldly distractions, legalism
and condemnation. When you identify with that God
given desire in a Christian to encounter God and just
teach them acceptance grace, you‟ll see how they
come alive! Watch how God begins to change them.
Here‟s the process:

The more we hear about grace, the more we realize

there are no obstacles in the way for us to encounter
God. The more we encounter God the more we are
transformed into his likeness. That‟s the basic
principle behind this whole book!

Therefore sanctification is basically all about getting

established in grace! To become established in
grace, you need to be in a grace environment. A
legalistic environment does not help! You need to be
listening to grace teaching and be surrounded by
grace-filled people who don‟t speak with judgment,
but rather with grace-filled words. Saturate yourself
with grace, start teaching it to others. You‟ll find
that‟s when it really starts to stick. As you read the
Bible, start seeing it through grace lenses. Listen to
grace preachers who don‟t just have a grace series
but who actually preach from a platform of grace,
where everything they say comes from a foundation
of grace.

We at City Church International, our church in Hong

Kong, have been accused of preaching an
unbalanced message, always teaching about the
new covenant! What else is there to teach? What are
you teaching if you‟re not teaching the new
covenant? Even when you teach from the old
covenant, you need to make sure it‟s new covenant
teaching! You have to ensure that you are revealing
the shadows and types of the old covenant and how
they have their fulfillment in Christ and in the new
covenant! Don‟t leave the new covenant to tell
Christians all about the things they are supposed to
be doing! If you have to tell Christians about things
they should be doing, make sure it is thoroughly
grounded in new covenant grace theology.

A grace environment is so absolutely vital for

sanctification. The old covenant brings death and
darkness, but the new covenant brings life and light
(2 Corinthians 3). A plant can‟t grow in a dark
cupboard with no light or nutrients, put it in the light,
feed it, and it will flourish.

Since the process of sanctification is really all about

being established in grace and living in grace, we
could just drop the whole idea of sanctification or
even ignore it altogether and just preach true grace
and you‟d find sanctification happening in the lives of
Christians automatically! If more preachers could
stop focusing on holiness and service and obedience
to God and simply preach pure grace they would see
the results are holiness and service and obedience
to God in people‟s lives!

You don‟t have to pull on the branches of a plant to

help it grow! Just give it light, feed the roots, and it
will grow.
Chapter 5: The full extent of sanctification.

It‟s so much more than just not sinning!

Living a holy life should not be defined as living

without sin. That‟s what the religious world has
made it because it still thinks we‟re under the old
covenant and tries to get us to live under that
covenant. Holiness is not about living without sin.
God was holy before sin ever existed. God‟s holiness
could not be referenced to sin because there was no
sin to begin with. What is holiness then? Holiness is
who God is. God is holy, and when we are separated
unto God and come into him, we become holy. Living
in God is holy living. Holiness isn‟t about living
without sin, it‟s about living in God! It‟s about living
from our position in Christ. Positionally we are
completely holy because we are in Christ.
Conditionally we are living out our position in Christ.
The more we live from our eternal position in Christ,
the more we are living holy in our earthly condition.
The less we live from our position in Christ, the less
holy we are living in our condition here on earth.
Living unholy is to live out our condition from our
condition. Living holy is to live out our condition from
our position.

Sin is not unholiness, it‟s the byproduct of

unholiness! Sin is the byproduct of not living from
your position in Christ. If we lived perfectly from our
position in Christ we would never sin while we are
here on earth!

The religious world has made „not sinning‟ equal

„holiness‟ and they have made that the most
important issue for the church. The religious spirit
across the world is trying to put pressure on leaders
to preach more about holiness and getting rid of sin.
It seems so virtuous, yet it is so deceptive! Many are
blindly falling prey to the religious spirit. The
religious spirit does this because it wants to get your
focus on sin and on your efforts on getting rid of sin.
As long as your focus is on that, it‟s not where it
should be, on Christ and your position in him. The
chief goal of the religious spirit is to get you out of
grace and back under law. Because under law you
strive in the flesh, your faith is in yourself and your
righteousness, and you live unaware of your
heavenly position. That‟s exactly where the devil
wants you! What‟s a great strategy to get Christians
off track and pursuing something that is a deceptive
diversion to their calling? Take something they‟re
meant to be pursuing and pervert it so that it looks
like they are pursuing the right thing when in fact
they have been fooled down some dead end road.

Now I do believe living holy is the issue, but not the

way it has commonly been defined as living without
sin. When you define holiness as living without sin
then people automatically think that if they stop
sinning then they are holy. But living without sin is
not the means to holiness, it‟s the fruit of holiness!
Holiness is simply living from your position in Christ.
That‟s it! The byproduct of that kind of living is that
you will automatically sin less. The church needs to
understand this and read the Bible through these
lenses. Otherwise when we read about being holy in
the Scriptures, all we will see is that holiness adds
up to sinning or not sinning.

Almost every time they talk about sinning less, it

comes in a context of understanding of the heavenly
position we were brought into through the grace of
God (eg 1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:9; 2 Timothy
2:21,22; 1 Peter).
What these scriptures are actually trying to say is
that if we live from our position in Christ we will not
only overcome sin, but we will see heaven coming to
earth through our lives! God didn‟t leave us on earth
to see how much sin we could overcome! He left us
on earth so that he could bring heaven to earth
through our lives and see his kingdom break in with
supernatural power to bring all things under the
headship of Christ!

I believe that God wants to shift our thinking back to

what true holiness is, and not the distorted idea of
holiness: Not living without sin, but living from our
position in Christ, and that the byproducts of that
will be overcoming sin and walking in the works
Jesus did and greater. These byproducts aren‟t
actual holiness. They are the result of holiness, and
not the cause, as the religious mindset goes, but the
natural consequence of living from our position in
Christ.

Can you see how the word holiness has been

perverted in our thinking? As soon as we hear the
word holiness, we think sin. We think what we have
to do. We think about ourselves; what we must do.
But the word holiness should cause us to
immediately focus on him. That he is holy and we‟re
in him, therefore everything, and I mean everything
that flows from a place in him is holy. That‟s what
being rooted in Christ is. Positionally we are in
Christ, but the more we become aware of that
position, the more our condition becomes rooted in
Christ, and the natural consequence will be that the
fruit of being rooted in him will show up in our lives!
Religion will have you focus on the fruit and trying to
produce it. Forget trying to produce fruit. Just get
rooted in Christ and it will be impossible to not have
fruit!

Bill Johnson says, “Our destiny is to go to heaven,

but our assignment is to bring heaven to earth.”

I wish I had said that! That‟s not just a nice notion,

it‟s an absolute reality that God wants to bring us
into.

We could say it like this, “We‟ve already achieved our

destiny because we are already seated in heavenly
places in Christ. The life we live from now on we live
from the heavens back to earth bringing heaven with
us.”
You could say, “The more we live from the heavens,
the more the heavens will show up in our lives.”

So the process of sanctification, then, is not about

learning how to sin less and less, it‟s about learning
how to live from our heavenly position more and
more!!!

That is a process of progressive revelation. As

revelation comes we awaken to the light. We
become aware of what is ours in Christ. Faith erupts
in our hearts and moves us into more of what is ours
positionally. This faith also causes us to
aggressively lay a hold of the things that are ours!

Sanctification, then, happens both passively as well

as actively. On the one hand the more we get
revelation about the heavenly realm where we are
seated, the more that reality flows into our lives
automatically. Whereas on the other hand the more
we become aware of what is ours in Christ the more
we can take a hold of it and enforce it into our
current condition on this earth.

True sanctification doesn‟t tell you what you have to

do, it reveals to you what is now possible and what
has been make available to you because of your
position in Christ!

There is a profound scripture in Colossians 2:9-10

that the natural mind cannot comprehend. We need
power from on high in our spirit to give us revelation
so we can comprehend it. It says, “For in Christ all
the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you
have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head
over every power and authority.”

“…and you have been given fullness in Christ…”

Can you comprehend that? Right now, positionally in

Christ, you have been given all the fullness of God!
Other translations say we have been made complete
in Christ. What does that mean? You need God to
open your heart wide and show you what that
means. I believe it means “not lacking anything”. All
of the spiritual riches of God are yours. You don‟t
have have to achieve anything else positionally. You
have the maximum of all that God is and can give
you! It‟s already yours: 100% righteousness, 100%
perfection, 100% obedience, 100% love, 100% faith,
100% authority, 100% health, 100% riches, 100%
victory over your enemies, 100% victory over sin,
100% passion for God, 100% access to God all the
time! There‟s no more to have or get. You are not
incomplete. You already have everything in Christ.
You are complete in Christ. Wow!

Ephesians 1:3 “…who has blessed us in the heavenly

realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”

Ephesians 2:6 “And God raised us up with Christ and

seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ
Jesus…”

Colossians 3:1-3 “Since, then, you have been raised

with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where
Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your
minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you
died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”

So we know now that positionally we already have

fullness in Christ. But look at the following scripture:

Ephesians 3:16-19 “I pray that out of his glorious

riches he may strengthen you with power through his
Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in
your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being
rooted and established in love, may have power,
together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and
long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to
know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you
may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of
God.”

Colossians says that we “have been given fullness in

Christ.” But here it‟s saying “so that we may be filled
to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

In one case we have it. In the other case we don‟t

have it yet but we can have it. I think it‟s simple:
Positionally we have been given absolute fullness in
Christ but conditionally we‟re not living in the
fullness of all of that yet. But the fact is we can. It‟s
available. We just need to know how to access it and
walk in it. As we do, all the fullness of who God is
and what His kingdom is begins to flow through our
lives into this earth! Wow! Talk about the secret key
to great power, victory, health, wealth and world
transformation!

See the more you find out about your position, the
more you find out about your potential. Do you know
that you have the potential to live in 100% victory
over sin? You have the potential to walk in divine
health! You have the potential to receive great
wealth! You have the potential to finance nations!
You have the potential to walk in the glory realm 24
hours a day! You have the potential to continually
hear the voice of God! You have the potential to
raise the dead! You have the potential to do greater
works than what Jesus did! Do you know that you
have the potential to do all that God has planned and
purposed for your life? It‟s true!

So how do we live from our heavenly position out

through our earthly condition?

1) Be born again. It can only start from there.

Romans 8:9 says that when we get born again, we
move from being in the flesh to being in the spirit.
That means we‟ve moved from living from our flesh
to living from our spirit positionally. That is what
makes it possible to live from your heavenly position
out through your earthly condition.

2) Pray in tongues. This is greatly underrated in the

body of Christ but is such a powerful thing to do. 1
Corinthians 14 is a good chapter on the power of
praying in tongues. Basically praying in the spirit
(tongues) edifies you. Meaning it builds you up
spiritually. Praying in tongues doesn‟t make your
spirit stronger, it makes it stronger in its influence
over your mind and your body. It brings your spirit
into ascendancy over your mind and body. That it
dominates you and has more influence over you and
what you think and do. Praying in the spirit edifies
you not in the way that it changes your mind or body
but that it causes your spirit to rise up in greater
influence over your mind and body. It moves you
from the natural realm into the spirit realm and
makes you more aware of your spirit and the Holy
Spirit.

Once you start praying in tongues on an occasion,

keep going until you get breakthroughs in your spirit.
You‟ll feel the surge. Sometimes you‟ll even feel the
atmosphere change. Just keep going. It only gets
better. Press through into deeper levels. As you do
you so sensitize yourself to the Holy Spirit that it
becomes very easy to hear the voice of God. If you
want to become more aware of the spirit realm, pray
in tongues. It can release a lot of the gifts of the
Spirit to start operating through you. I often get
downloads of revelation as I‟m praying in tongues.
It‟s amazing that you can be praying in tongues yet
receiving at the same time. It‟s because the spirit
realm is multi dimensional. I honestly don‟t know
where I would be as a Christian without this
powerful gift operating in my life. I often pray in
tongues while doing regular things. Driving, working,
walking, in the shower, in my room alone, even at
church! It‟s not a luxury or an optional extra as a
Christian, it‟s an absolute necessity! If this gift isn‟t
operating in your life, I urge you strongly, get it
operating! Read books about it. Talk to your pastor
or find out from mature Christians who know about
it. It will have a profound effect in helping you live
from your heavenly position.

3) Get grounded and established in grace. We need

constant and deep revelation of our position in
Christ. This really is all about becoming aware, by
supernatural revelation, of who we are and where we
are. Children of God, perfect in Christ and seated in
heavenly places!

4) Fix your eyes, heart and mind on heavenly things.

That‟s active. That‟s pursuing it.

Colossians 3:1-3 “Since, then, you have been raised

with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where
Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your
minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you
died, and you life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
The more you focus on earthly things the more you
live from the earthly realm. The more you focus on
heavenly things, the more you live from heavenly
realm.

5) Encounter him through worship and prayer.

Don‟t worship or pray to earn his presence, simply

enter his presence in worship and prayer. I can
instantly step into his presence anytime of the day
because he‟s living in me and I‟m so aware of him.
But there are different intensities of his presence
and to go deeper you need to press in and press
through a bit. We should feel so at home in his
presence. I feel naked without his presence. Now I
know that he‟s in us and we just need to trust that
even if we can or can‟t feel a thing, but I‟m not
satisfied with that. I must feel his tangible presence
in my life. I want to feel it when I‟m witnessing, when
I‟m worshiping, when I‟m praying, when I‟m
counseling, and most certainly when I‟m leading a
Sunday meeting. His presence guides us, changes
us, empowers us and distinguishes us. His presence
is most precious. I‟m not satisfied with low level
presence as so many Christians are. I‟m not satisfied
with his omnipresence, I want his manifest
presence. Do you know the difference between
them? When his manifest presence comes in the
room even the unsaved feel it! Demons feel it! Don‟t
buy into that low level presence of God stuff. Pursue
his presence. Get into his presence. Soak in his
presence, move in his presence. Live in his
presence. Live from his presence.

6) Get to know the Holy Spirit really well. Walk with

the Holy Spirit. He is your best friend. Talk to him.
Discern his presence. Listen for his voice. He‟s The
Spirit of Truth. He testifies to the Gospel. He
strengthens your inner being with power to know and
understand the finished work of Jesus and the love
of God towards you to cause you to be filled with the
measure of all the fullness of God. I live every day of
my life aware of the Holy Spirit‟s presence. I talk to
him every day and feel his guiding and leading. I feel
his anointing. I know how to let it increase by simply
opening myself to him and he comes. Every time I
ask him to make something clear to me and I listen,
he speaks and does just that. How many preachers,
when they pray, ever reference the Holy Spirit? Yet
he is the contact person of the trinity here on earth.
Speak to Him. Get to know Him. He‟s awesome. He‟s
God the Holy Spirit living in you! And there is so
much more I could say about the Holy Spirit but I
think that‟s a whole other book!

7) Give what you have away.

Let the heavens flow. Step out with what you have.
Exercise it! Take hold of it. Enforce. Command.
Stand on. Make use of. Press into. Lay hold of.
Release. Faith is the substance of things unseen.
You can‟t see all that is yours in the heavens, but it
is yours, so believe it and walk in it. You are
righteous. You are healthy, wealthy, and victorious
over your enemies, victorious over sin, full of His
faith, full of His love, full of His power. It‟s all yours!
Lay hold of what‟s yours! Get it flowing by confessing
it and acting on it.

8) Contend to live from the heavens! Keep putting

yourself in a place where you need heaven to come.
Where you need the supernatural to break in. Your
assignment is not found within comfort zones! Our
assignment doesn‟t happen because we‟re sinless. It
happens because we contend for it! And we‟re
contending to manifest what is ours in heaven here
on earth. We contend not by thinking we need to
attain it, but believing it‟s already ours. Grace tells
us what‟s available to every Christian to be able to
walk in now. Law puts it out of reach. Eating from
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil cut Adam
and Eve off from the tree of life. Grace restores us
back to glory and to the tree of life so that we may
bear fruit for God.

Now, it‟s wonderful that we‟re born again and

guaranteed of going to heaven. But if our Christianity
is limited to just that then somehow we‟ve been
tricked out of an incredible assignment that God has
chosen us for! When I hear about good works that
God has prepared for me I don‟t feel burdened, I feel
excited! What a privilege that God has set me aside
for great works and set aside great works for me! I
know that it is God‟s will for heaven to invade earth
now! And I know He wants to do it through His
church, which includes me!

Heaven is the answer to all the questions the earth

is asking. Why is there so much suffering? Because
heaven has not come to those places yet! Why is
there so much sickness? Because heaven has not
fully manifested in those bodies yet. Why is there so
much rebellion and evil? Because heaven has not
been revealed in those places yet! Why is there so
much poverty? Because heaven has not been
released in those places yet! Why are so many
people bound up by the devil? Because heaven has
not been brought to those people yet!

This world needs us, the church, to be a vessel and a

portal where the invisible realm manifests into the
visible realm. God‟s desire is that his will would be
done on earth as it is in heaven through his church.
The earth needs the realm of “as it is in heaven” to
break in! That‟s the glory realm! It‟s the supernatural
realm. Unless that realm breaks in, people are bound
by the god of this world, the devil, in their minds and
bodies and cannot see the light of the gospel of the
glory of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4). God is manifesting
all over the world in these times, His magnificent
glory through His church out into the world. As a
result a great harvest is beginning to come in and
God is being revealed to the nations. Joshua Mills
says that these are the times where “The cup of time
and the cup of eternity are being tipped over and
now time is running out and heaven is rushing in!”
Wow! There is an increase of the manifestations of
the glorious supernatural realm of God in the earth
today. Miracles, healings, deliverance and various
signs and wonders are increasing around the world.
Much of the church gets religious and weird about it
yet it is all there in the Bible and we should be
getting excited about it. God is revealing himself
more and more to the nations and he‟s using us!

Now, if heaven is the absolute manifestation of God‟s

undiluted glory, and if God wants His will to be done
on earth as it is in heaven, then why would it be
strange that His supernatural glory realm should
begin to manifest on earth? If heaven is the unseen
realm and earth is the seen realm and heaven is
breaking into the earth, don‟t you think we would
start to see some heavenly things? Apart from
incredible healings and miracles, we‟re also seeing
an increase of supernatural signs and wonders like
the manifestation of gold dust on people, heavenly
oil being poured out, gem stones dropping out of the
glory realm, angels feathers falling in meetings,
beautiful fragrances, winds blowing, fire, rainbows
and flashes of light manifesting, and so many other
things. It would make sense because the Bible is full
of gold, angels, oils, precious stones, wind, fire,
rainbows and heaven is full of those things too. So
why would it be strange if God chose to manifest
some of those things here on earth supernaturally to
show his glory and his superiority over the natural
order of things? His signs and his wonders point to a
higher truth that he is manifesting heaven in the
midst!

Some people have a problem with these things and

criticize other Christians about them. But it‟s not
right to criticize what you don‟t understand and
besides that, how can you criticize it if it‟s God that‟s
doing it?

If we want to see God manifesting heaven in all

kinds of ways more and more then we must not be
ashamed of what he chooses to do and what things
he chooses to manifest. Don‟t come under pressure,
either, that you need to always clarify, “Well we
don‟t worship the signs, they just point to Jesus and
we worship Him.” I don‟t think I know one Christian
who worships signs and wonders! I‟m sure they‟re
out there but all the Christians I know are amazed at
the signs and are in awe of Jesus every time they
show up! In Hebrew culture the bridegroom sends
precious gifts like gold and gems and oil and
fragrances ahead of him to the bride before he
comes. Jesus, our heavenly bridegroom, is adorning
his bride with glory to display her to the nations of
the world before He comes! We were created for
glory, by his glory, and to bring glory to Him! His
glory is a precious and powerful thing. When the
nations see His glory, they will be moved!

Adam and Eve were created in the glory and for the
glory. They were created as spiritual beings in the
image of God, clothed in flesh. They were naked yet
felt no shame because they were clothed in the glory
of God. When they sinned, they fell short of the glory,
realized they were naked, and hid from God. They
realized something terrible had happened. Imagine
that extreme, horrible feeling. They tried to make
things right by covering themselves in fig leaves,
which is just self effort. Much of the church today is
not clothed in the glory of God but in fig leaves.
They‟re proud of their works and achievements for
God. They‟re proud of their programs and how well
their people behave. They‟re proud that their
meetings are „together‟ and „civilized‟ and „orderly‟.
and they are ashamed of the manifestations of God‟s
glory. They don‟t expect miracles and signs and
wonders; people getting out of wheel chairs, demons
coming out and the Holy Spirit moving mightily on
people. They feel uncomfortable when you talk about
things like angels showing up and gold dust
appearing on people, oil and gems manifesting,
people being transported, the dead being raised and
cripples walking. They get all religious and cautious
about these things. Yet they are not aware of their
nakedness because they have grown happy with all
their fig leaves. I lovingly say that they should feel
utterly ashamed! Not of their nakedness but of their
fig leaves! God wants us naked. He wants to strip us
of all our dependencies, self efforts, self
righteousness, religious routines and our ways of
doing things that don‟t require Him, so that He can
clothe us with His glory. The reason they‟re not
ashamed is because they think that the glory realm
is unusual. They can‟t understand it because they
are still operating from the natural realm. The fig leaf
realm. The self effort realm. The realm of the flesh.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil realm.
The law realm. In that realm there is a fading glory.
The glory realm cannot be understood from the
natural realm. It‟s the heavenly realm. It‟s a spiritual
realm and needs to be spiritually discerned and
understood (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Many people today are ashamed of the glory of God.

Why would they be ashamed of that for which they
were created? Because they‟re still living from a
natural place rather than a spiritual place. They are
satisfied with the fig leaves of natural human effort
and can‟t see their nakedness. If you can‟t see your
nakedness, there‟s no way you‟ll contend for the
glory of God. Yet the only way to be clothed in the
glory is to get rid of all the self righteous fig leaves
and be naked before the Lord.

We were created for ever increasing glory. The glory

is God‟s ability, God‟s favor, God‟s endorsement and
God‟s grace! The glory is the realm of the impossible
made possible. It‟s the realm that makes everything
easy! It makes healing easy, evangelism easy,
preaching easy, deliverance easy, resisting the devil
easy, loving people easy, transforming communities
and cities easy! We shouldn‟t be ashamed of that
realm. Instead, we should be ashamed of not having
that realm! The only hope for the church and for the
nations is for heaven to invade earth! God wants to
use the church to do this! Much of the church is
going to miss out because they‟re not contending for
it or are ashamed of it. However, there are those
who are coming into new covenant glory, and God is
using them!

The devil managed to trick Adam and Eve out of the

glory and he‟s constantly trying to trick the church
out of the glory as well. Why? Because he knows
how devastating it is. His kingdom cannot function in
the glory realm, and when it comes, he has to go!

Jesus warned to watch out for the yeast of Herod

and the yeast of the Pharisees. He was talking about
the political spirit and the religious spirit. I don‟t
want to go into it so much but just want to say that
the prime agenda of the political spirit is to obscure
the finished work of Christ! Herod tried to kill Jesus
when Jesus was a baby because he knew the
prophecies about the Christ who would deliver his
people from their oppressors. The devil knows that
Jesus, the king of glory, delivers people from their
oppressors. Moses was a type of Christ as a
mediator and deliverer who Pharaoh tried to kill
when he was a baby as well. The political spirit
wants to draw people away from Jesus and wants
glory for itself. So it attacks Jesus and tries to
obscure Him. The political spirit is cunningly after
the glory of God. It will do anything to trick people
out of the glory of God. Why do you think there is
such an attack within the body of Christ these days
when it comes to signs and wonders, healings, glory
manifestations, angels etc? Because so many have
been hi-jacked by a political spirit and are now
operating by that spirit. We must not give into it for a
second! We must not be intimidated or shrink back in
fear at all! The King of glory is doing mighty things in
the earth today, so let‟s be part of what He‟s doing
and if it‟s Him that‟s doing it then who cares what
other people think?

The prime agenda of the religious spirit is to get the

church back under law! It‟s to get you to be satisfied
with your fig leaves! If it can get you back under law
it gets you back into the realm of self effort and the
realm of natural abilities. That‟s the realm of fading
glory and death according to 2 Corinthians 3.

You only need to look around a little to see how

rampant the political spirit and religious spirit are in
the church. Fortunately God is waking his church up
to these things in these days. He will have his
church come fully into the New Novenant and ever
increasing glory. The time is upon us where there is
a window of grace available to the body of Christ to
sort out the issue of the mixture of old covenant and
new covenant. God is drawing a line in the sand.
Those who resist him and want a mixture will be like
the foolish virgins who missed out! Those who come
fully into New Novenant will be like the wise virgins.
The bridegroom will be with them! Not a heaven and
hell issue in regards to eternity but a heaven and hell
issue in regards to earth! Will we facilitate heaven
coming to earth or hell coming to earth? What is
hell? It is judgment and death. What does the law
bring? Judgment and death! What is heaven? It is
glory and life! What does grace bring? Glory and life!

Getting the heavens to come is not about trying to

earn them through good works and holiness. It‟s
about resting in the good works and holiness of
Jesus on our behalf!

We asked Joshua Mills, when he was with us at City

Church, “How can we see more of the heavenly
realm breaking in?” He said, “Just talk about the
heavens, and look for that realm to manifest. The
more you do, the more you show that you‟re not
ashamed of that realm but instead open to that
realm. The more you‟re open to that realm the more
you will see that realm manifesting!” It makes sense
too, because the more you focus on the heavenly
realm the more you live from that realm!

So we live from heaven to earth! We live from the

spiritual realm into the natural realm. Some will just
think that‟s strange, but you are already seated in
the heavenly realm and it would be more strange for
you to now live from the natural realm trying to get
into the spiritual realm.

I could just keep going on and on. There‟s no way

you can ever completely cover a subject like this
because it‟s a progressive revelation of God‟s ever
increasing glory. So while this is the end of this
book, it is by no means the end of the revelation of
sanctification by grace. God‟s heart is to reveal to us
the fullness of himself, so continue pursuing him,
spend time in his presence and you will find that he
will open up to you revelation upon revelation.
 Conclusion:

Firstly I want to say thank you for reading this book

and I hope it has blessed you. I know it‟s not the final
word on the whole matter, just some insights that
will help you along your way. At the end of such a
book I really feel like just saying to you, “Don‟t even
worry about trying to be sanctified! It really isn‟t the
focus. Let God take care of that. Your main focus
should just be him. Get to know him. Receive his
love. Do you know that he has such delight in loving
you? He really isn‟t anxious about your
sanctification. He just wants to love you. He‟s not
driving you or commanding you. He‟s not trying to
compel you or manipulate you or get you doing stuff.
He just wants to love you. I tell you when you see
him and encounter him, all the other stuff will come.
Your calling and destiny and assignments are not in
the future, they‟re in him, and you‟re in him now. Live
in him and enjoy him now. Don‟t be anxious about the
future. Don‟t think your destiny and calling are in the
future. Live in them now. Enjoy the now. Be content
in God now. Be fully satisfied in God now. Be happy
and at peace and at rest in God now. No matter what
you go through and face, the secret to contentment
is found in him now. Don‟t live as a prisoner of the
past or a slave to the future. Live in the purpose and
in the sense that it has all already been achieved in
Christ now! God will guide you into your future. He
will show you what‟s next. He will prompt you and
reveal and unlock things to you. He will open the
doors. He will take care of you. Don‟t contend for
your future. Contend for him and living in him. He will
contend for your future!!!”

God has blessed you and you are a blessing!

Ryan Rufus
 Sanctification by Grace
Ryan Rufus.
In this book Ryan shows that sanctification is both an event and a process. That it
has already happened to you, and is busy happening to you. He shows us that the
starting point of sanctification is to first understand the event, and that if you don‟t,
then sanctification will always tend to move towards legalism.

The event of sanctification places us in our heavenly position in Christ that is is

perfect in every way. The process of sanctification is where our current earthly
condition is being transformed to look more and more like our heavenly position. The
way this happens is not through external restraint, laws, disciplines, behavior
modification or manipulation, but through simply being established in grace.

The concept of sanctification by grace holds that the grace that saves us is the
same grace that sanctifies us. That the supernatural transformation in the spirit of a
person, at the point of salvation, is more powerful than any external law or discipline
you could apply to a Christian to get them to be holy or live for God. Grace awakens
the nature of God in the believer. Grace removes every barrier to God and empowers
us to live close to Him. It is through that life of encounter that we are continually
transformed, here on earth, into who we truly are in the heavenly realms in Christ.

Ryan lives with his wife Kylie and their four

children Renae, Chloe, Kimberly and Asher in
Hong Kong. They are a part of the leadership of
City Church International.