Above my desk are two items that I see daily and have owned for many years. I cherish them because they represent the inter-connectedness of two men who never met each other and yet who spoke the same message in a powerful way in their generation.
One is an old, old block print from the only book slavery abolitionist William Wilberforce ever wrote: A Practical View of Christianity. It is a most endearing book on the sanctification process.
Next to it is an excerpt from a sermon by Reformer Martin Luther, who also preached on sanctification. The beautiful calligraphy of the sermon is a mere reminder of the end result of sanctification—the beauty of our soul. He wrote:
This life therefore is not righteousness but growth in righteousness;
not health but healing;
not being but becoming;
not rest but exercise.We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it.
The process is not finished, but it is going on.
This is not the end, but it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.
Two men, each seeing how Christ changed their own lives, have left for us messages about the sanctification of our own soul. Cherish the journey, fix on the cross.
