A To-Do List for the Sanctified

There are all kinds of ways to take the light burden that Jesus promised in Matthew 11:30 and turn this into something heavy.

One of the ways I have found is by searching for the particular and specific will of God in my life.

Turns out, I didn’t have to search. God’s will for me is the same as God’s will for you. In the first letter to the Thessalonians—which is perhaps the earliest document in the New Testament—Paul states it this plainly:

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification”
—I Thessalonians 4:3.

That is, in the same way that certain dwellings, rocks, or spots of ground have been sacred because of the way people encountered God in those places ... now it is people themselves who are sacred. And the way to become a “living temple” in this way is to encounter God in your heart. (I am grateful to a sharp little book that highlights this I Thessalonians verse, Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung.)

“Fine,” you might say. OK—I am to be sanctified. But what does that mean? “Sanctified” is a state that comes from God’s grace. Meanwhile, I am still here on earth. I have a life to live. What am I supposed to do with it? What am I supposed to do with my energies, resources, attention, and time in order to make sure that I helping carry out God’s plan?

The answer—in a great many of the choices that we make—is that it really does not matter what we do.

That answer might be less than satisfying, but there it is.

In fact, it’s possible to become lost in the preoccupation with what to do. The teachings of Jesus focus on attitudes of the heart. If our heart is with Christ, then we will tend to make choices that further our capacity to bear good fruit (Matthew 7:16). The branches of the vine do not know the precise size, quantity, and color of the fruit they will produce. In the same way, we do not know precisely how our lives are supposed to proceed, but if we make choices day by day that are based upon faith and love, then over time we may see the result of those choices in various forms of fruit that Christ produces through us.

But even if that answer still feels unsatisfying, that’s all right. Paul seemed to anticipate this. We are people of action, after all, and so he closed that same early letter with a list of action items. I hope to explore some of these items in future posts. Here they are—a to-do list for the sanctified:

● Be joyful always
● Pray without ceasing
● In everything give thanks
● (For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you)
● Do not quench the Spirit
● Do not despise prophecies
● Test all things
● Hold fast what is good
● Abstain from every form of evil
—I Thessalonians 5:16-22