[sunday meditations]

This is far less "meditation" and far more "rambling," so bear with me. 

Or quit reading. Up to you. 

Seeing as I've no idea where this post is going, I can't recommend either. 

I'm writing this from Blue Ash, and since I won't get home until 1 AM and have to be up at 6, I forewent my coffee from the U.D.F. down the street and am feeling as if these next two hours are going to draaag by (the triple A's emphasize said dragging). Thus my mind is a cloud and all but absent critical thought.

I've been reading a lot about spiritual transformation, spiritual disciplines, "the Christian life." Really great books and articles coupled with lots of pondering and prayer. The ultimate goal of spiritual transformation, in the Christian sense, is "conformity to Christ," "being like Christ," or "Christ-likeness" (semantics, friends, semantics). This isn't about conforming to a certain abstract standard, but about moving in increasing measure towards genuine humanness. The doctrine of sanctification is all about growth in our holiness, and growth in holiness is all about experiencing wholeness as human beings. You can say sanctification is about our movement towards "Christ-likeness," growing in conformity to Christ, growing in genuine human living. Sanctification is about growing in our devotion to God, and this, too, is part of what it means to be genuinely human, since we're created specifically as God's standard-bearers. Sanctification isn't droll or dreary; it's a gift, from God and by the Spirit, and not at all something we simply have to "put up with" since it comes with the Christian territory. Sanctification--growth in humanness, Christ-likeness, devotion to God, becoming more and more healed and whole as the Spirit works on our hearts and personalities--is something that's always couched in beautiful language in the New Testament, because it is something beautiful. 

Sanctification is one of the most hope-filled and joy-inducing aspects of what it means to "be a Christian," and I think it's something that needs to be pulled off the sidelines and brought center-stage. The letters of the New Testament speak much more about sanctification than justification, so that should tell us something.