When a believer is “sanctified” by God – a process that begins at the moment of justification and continues until his glorification in heaven – he is said to be “set apart.” That’s the connotation in Greek. Reserved, pulled aside, for a special purpose. Imagine you are a rare silver dollar from the 1800s, and some man finds you in his coin bowl. What is he going to do? He will clean you up, removing the tarnish and scum, and then he will put you in a display box to show you off to his house guests. Your worth is hundreds of times more than $1, so he will set you apart. That’s the way it is when, in Christ, we become the infinitely valuable children of God. He begins the cleaning process which will end in our being displayed for his glory and honor.
The same is true for the girl who has pity on a dog at the pound and takes him home. When her mercy and sympathy has chosen to rescue that untrained, unruly puppy, she gives him a bath, trains him to obey, and not to pee in the house. She puts him through the uncomfortable rigors of domestication so that he can live the more fulfilling life as part of a family, instead of being stuck at the pound.
Do you feel like you’re being scrubbed by life’s steel wool? Has God got you sitting in some abrasive acid? Something painful that you don’t know how to handle? Are you unsure that his intentions for you remain entirely benevolent? Only through suffering can we be refined into the children of God that he has planned for us to be. The only way to sit at the table of the Wedding Feast one day is to share with Christ in his sufferings, in cleansing from sin and galvanizing our faith through fire.
Ben Taylor 