The general subject for this conference was the will of God – our sanctification. In these messages, we discovered that God has a will, and His will is to sanctify His believers, that they may become the many sons of God.
To be sanctified is to be made holy, which is to be separated unto God and saturated with God as the holy one, who is different from everything that is common.
It is by being sanctified, God can transform us in the essence of our spirit, soul and body, making us wholly like Him in nature. Although we were regenerated once we believed into the Lord, we need to undergo a process of sanctification, which is a lifelong matter.
Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love, Predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. Eph. 1:4-5
God originally chose us to be pure and holy even before the foundations of the world, but through the fall, our body was ruined, our soul was contaminated, and our spirit was deadened.
Yet, praise the Lord, this did not deter God from His original plan. He sent His only begotten son, Jesus, as a prototype, that we may become the mass reproduction through the imparting of life to our being through the Spirit. As a result, leading His many sons into glory.
Despite the message of our sanctification being very encouraging to hear, the enemy has made it quite complicated for us to enjoy. One of the main reasons is that he condemns us in our conscience.
This leads many to believe that they are helpless cases and God would not forgive them. But 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”.
Here we see the answer is to repent. Whenever we sense condemnation in our conscience, we need to confess our sins before God and deal with our sins before man, and God is faithful to cleanse us from every sin.
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin. 1 John 1:7
It doesn’t matter if we feel guilty of something we did recently or something we did 5 years ago, when the Lord exposes us of anything that we haven’t dealt with, we must confess before God, and then leave it behind. As we deal with our conscience, we will be made simple, single and pure for the Lord.
We go on to learn about the structure of our heart, which is made up of our soul (mind, emotion, will) plus the leading part of our spirit, the conscience. A proper heart is needed, in order to grow in life and allow God’s life to fill us.
However, our heart is very sticky, although we love the Lord and want to please Him, our heart likes to stick to anything that is able to satisfy us.
I was touched when the brother shared that if our heart is not pure, even our desire to do good for the Lord can hinder the flow of the Lord in us. For example, preaching the gospel is very good, but if we love preaching the gospel more than we love the Lord Himself, it can become a blockage in our being which stops us from receiving the Lord as our life.
We need to cooperate with the Lord for this matter. On one hand, you could say our heart is the root of all the problems, but on the other hand our heart is the key to solving all our problems and enjoying all the riches of Christ.
Our dealing with our heart is according to the Lord’s shining, and His shining is gradual, and He progressively intensifies His shining as we deal with the items that He brings to light.
We do need an immediate change in heart, but each time we submit to the light, our heart is more thoroughly examined and purified. As a result, the Lord’s infilling of the divine life and nature will swallow up all our weaknesses, thus allowing us to grow in life.
For it is God who operates in you both the willing and the working for His good pleasure (Phil 2:13).
Sharing by Alan B. (Norwich) from his top sharing in the 2025 Autumn University Conference in UK on the topic of, The Will of God — Our Sanctification. If you were at this conference and would like to share what you enjoyed the most, email us at enjoyingthelord@gmail.com.
