A New Year’s Day Message: Diligent in Sanctification

“Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.” 2 Peter 3:14

Be diligent! That ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless! 

Diligent in sanctification! 

And sanctification, you know, is that work of God's grace in you whereby he delivers you consciously from the pollution and dominion of sin, and renews you in conformity with the image of Christ, and enables you to walk faithfully in all good works, which he has before prepared, in order that you should walk in them. Sanctification is that operation of the Spirit of Christ in you whereby a new spiritual-moral direction is given to you, according to which out of a regenerated heart your thinking, willing, desiring, yea, the action of your whole being, are brought into harmony with his truth and his commandments. Sanctification is that work of grace in you whereby you in principle begin to mortify the old man of sin in your members, and to put on the new man, which is the beginning of the new creation for which you now look in hope. 

In this be diligent! That is, be earnestly desirous of it, and with all haste follow after it! So that ye may be found of him in peace! Without spot and blameless! 

Oh, the blessedness of them who shall be so found by him when he shall come to renew all things! 

To be found of him in peace is the positive way of stating what is negatively expressed in: without spot, and blameless. To be found in peace means that you are so discovered by the Lord when he comes again as being in perfect harmony with him and his will. All the natural enmity, the rebellion and hatred of your old nature is removed. It means that you will be found of him with all the love of your heart going out to him, as being righteous as he is righteous, and holy as he is holy. It means that you will be living and walking as his covenant friend in the world, and expecting the judgment of his favor, which shall declare unto you: "Come ye blessed, inherit the kingdom which I have prepared for you." And to be without spot and blameless means that he will find you unsullied from the world, free from all vice, wholly unblemished, pure in his sight. It means that you will appear before him irreprehensible, beyond all censure. 

Oh, beloved, make no mistake about it, and do not fall in the blundering error that somehow you can of yourself bring about this relationship of peace, and that you can of yourself be so found as to be without spot and blameless. You must remember that sanctification, as is true of all of our salvation, is entirely God's work of grace in us. You must remember, too, that this work of grace is preceded by another work of grace in us whereby he has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead. We have been regenerated unto a living hope. 

Regeneration is the first principle, the beginning of the life of the new creation which we expect him to bring out of the old which shall pass away. It is this grace that cannot perish, while all else, even your old nature, passes away. And it is this grace of regeneration that is the casual ground of his work of sanctification within us. It dwells in our hearts, motivates our entire life, connects us with the living Christ who is the head of the coming new world. Out of the regenerated heart, from which proceeds all your thinking, willing, and desiring, yea, all the issues of your life, comes the holy expectation, the longing for the new. 

Be diligent, therefore . . . Beloved! Also in this new year! 

Which you will find has really nothing new in it at all, except a new period of time. All the rest is really an old world, a world since the flood that is rushing to its final destruction, the conflagration. 

In that world, in which you are expecting the new, make haste to be holy as he is holy. . . . 

That you may be found of him in peace! 

At his coming!

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This excerpt was taken from a meditation written by Rev. Marinus Schipper printed in the January 1, 1972 issue of the Standard Bearer. Read the full article.