Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph. 4:22-24).
The apostle Paul is writing to Christian believers who have been born again, and in whom the Holy Spirit abides. They have been justified by faith and adopted into the family of God. They have already been counted as righteous in Jesus Christ, who died for their sins. They now have a destiny which they must pursue. They are called unto holiness, not because they are not yet accepted by God, but because they are.The miracle of regeneration changes our standing with God – we pass from death unto life; we are transplanted from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light; we are transformed from creatures of despair into children of hope with a glorious inheritance.
As lost souls, we responded to the Holy Spirit’s call to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. As believers, we must now respond to the Holy Spirit’s call to God’s ordained purpose for each of His redeemed children: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:29). This change from our old sinful corrupt nature of Adam into the new nature of Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit, with our consent – with our willingness to die to our selfish desires, our total surrender to the will of God. This change is called sanctification. This sanctifying experience is both a refining crisis and a renewing continuation.
Let us note three conditions on the part of the believer in order to experience the sanctifying crisis as well as the purifying process: ask, obey, believe.
