If You Have Accepted Christ, The Journey Is Just Beginning

January 15, 2025

In this new year, 2025, those of us who have a relationship with Christ continue the journey we began the day we accepted Christ into our hearts. Paul writes, “And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness” (Colossians 2:6-7).

When we accept Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to live within us and the journey begins. The journey between our accepting Christ and our going on to eternity is called Sanctification. Billy Graham explains:

But God also heard our second cry, that cry for goodness, and answered it at Pentecost. God does not want us to come to Christ by faith, and then lead a life of defeat, discouragement and dissension. Rather, He wants to ‘fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power; in order that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you’ (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12). To the great gift of forgiveness God adds also the great gift of the Holy Spirit. He is the source of power who meets our need to escape from the miserable weakness that grips us. He gives us the power to be truly good…

Sanctification means to be set apart, be made holy, to become like Christ; in other words, to be “truly good.”

Paul is talking about sanctification when he writes to the Romans that we are created to be “conformed to the image of His Son,” and to the Corinthians that “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” The author of I & II Peter challenges Christians, men and women who have already accepted Christ, to “add to their faith” in order to “participate in the divine nature.”

Max Lucado simply reminds us of this truth: “God loves you just the way you are but refuses to leave you that way; He wants you to be just like Jesus.”

It is God’s sanctifying grace that allows us, gives us the power, to continually grow in his likeness.  When we decide to live a Christlike life, God is there with us.  When we step out in faith to follow Jesus, God gives us the power from within to do so. 

The Holy Spirit is perfecting and maturing our relationship with God, restoring us to God’s image, the image in which we were created, the image of His son, Jesus Christ.  As Paul writes:

God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.

Once we say, “yes” to Christ the work does not stop; it begins.  God knows us inside and out, knows “everything [we] ever did,” just like the woman at the well (John 4:5-30), and is ready to help transform us into the likeness of His Son.

After my father died, I fell into a deep depression and refused to be helped.  Each day I did only what I needed to survive and no more. My depression and grief began to affect my work, my relationship with my supervisor, and my relationship with my wife.  Instead of going to God in my time of grief and depression, I had turned to sleep, escape and rebellion. 

I prayed to God to take the whole situation away.  And I was led to a passage in the first chapter of Isaiah.  God speaks through the prophet:

I will turn my hand against you; I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities.  I will restore your judges as in days of old…Afterward you will be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City.

God was reminding me that His sanctifying grace was at work, “purging away my dross,” scraping away my dirt.  God was reminding me, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28).

God opened my eyes, and He led me to get counseling.  I was diagnosed with depression.  I went through grief counseling.  By choosing to go to God, to listen, through God’s sanctifying grace, I was recreated and made anew. I drew closer to God, felt my calling more strongly, became closer to my wife, and began to deal with my dad’s death.

We cannot stop. We must daily take time for self-examination, listening to the Holy Spirit’s promptings, and asking God questions like:

            “What should I work on today?”

            “How can I become more like Jesus in my thoughts, speech, and actions?”

            “What must I do to grow closer to you?"

With the Holy Spirit’s help, we must keep moving and growing. Take your next step today!