{"id":18349,"date":"2024-09-24T12:26:07","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T11:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/?p=18349"},"modified":"2024-09-24T12:28:02","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T11:28:02","slug":"sanctification-thoughts-from-madeleine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/2024\/09\/24\/sanctification-thoughts-from-madeleine\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanctification – thoughts from Madeleine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sanctification<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. <\/em><\/p>\n

Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. <\/em><\/p>\n

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God\u2019s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.<\/em><\/p>\n

Romans 7:15, 20-21, 24-25 NIVUK<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Be forewarned: I\u2019m not delving deeply into the theological concept of sin and sanctification, and I\u2019m not going to attempt to tell anyone how to gain salvation \u2013 the Bible does that well enough without my input. In this article, I am very simply going to reflect on the contrasting states we hold as Christians, of being simultaneously saint and sinner.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I became a Christian, in April 2016, I thought that I had been healed of everything that had been wrong with me before. It didn\u2019t take very long before I was forced to confront my error.<\/p>\n

I remember one Good Friday, before the pandemic, when my church hosted a viewing of the crucifixion scene from a show or film followed by quiet reflection at several Passion-themed prayer stations. I had just recently read the passage from Romans 7 which I have condensed into five verses above; it had upset me deeply, since I saw myself in it. The things which I wanted to be doing \u2013 good things that showed the love of Messiah and helped to usher in the Kingdom of God \u2013 just didn\u2019t come naturally to me, and I had been silently punishing myself for it, believing myself to be a \u2018bad Christian\u2019 \u2013 as if such a thing exists. I remember sobbing on my minister\u2019s shoulder while she told me kindly that the discouragement I was experiencing was from the enemy.<\/p>\n

I have been pondering on this passage again over the last few weeks. The things we want to do, we just can\u2019t seem to manage. The things we regret or condemn, the things we run from or try to conceal \u2013 those things just seem to cling on, or hide well enough that we think they\u2019re gone\u2026 for a while.<\/p>\n

Why? I ask God sometimes \u2013 He\u2019s big enough and kind enough to take my anger and confusion with His usual gentle grace. Why do we always fall short? Why can\u2019t we even meet our own standards? Being holy, according to our Christian calling, seems impossible. It\u2019s utterly out of reach.<\/p>\n

In short, I have been reflecting on just how necessary God\u2019s grace is.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have recently started reading the thirteen sermons John Wesley wrote on the Sermon on the Mount, translated into Modern English by James D. Holway. In the first of these sermons, Wesley writes at length about the first beatitude: \u2018Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.<\/em>\u2019 He delves into what \u2018poor in spirit\u2019 means, about spiritual poverty and humility, the recognition of our spiritual destitution. This is hard to read \u2013 especially for someone who comes from a non-religious family where \u2018sin\u2019 is a trigger word sparking heating disagreements. For me, the concept of sin was revolutionary in my life \u2013 I had known all my life that there was something wrong, and I finally had not only a name for it, but a solution, too: faith in Messiah Jesus!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I set out to write this article, I meant it to be very short \u2013 a setup, really. It was meant to be a few short paragraphs to give context for a poem I wrote. It seems I\u2019m not very good at being anything other than longwinded \u2013 which needn\u2019t be a criticism.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sometimes, it\u2019s so easy to be swamped by that sense of helplessness \u2013 to look down at my hands and think, \u2018What am I trying to achieve? I can\u2019t do anything.<\/em>\u2019 But we aren\u2019t meant to do something, exactly. We aren\u2019t saviours \u2013 we don\u2019t need to save ourselves. From this place of mixed grief and celebration, I wrote this poem, called Sanctification<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Oxford English Dictionary defines sanctification as \u2018the action or process of being freed from sin or purified\u2019.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sanctification<\/em><\/p>\n


\nMy body, Lord, is a bouncy ball; it craves the hit, it loves the fall,
\nIt longs to throw me under tires.
\nMy body is a circus trick; it craves the jump, it loves the kick,
\nIt longs to cast me into fires.<\/em><\/p>\n

My gut, it hates my body, Lord,
\nFor all the damage caused when bored,
\nFor closing ears and eyes and lips,
\nAnd scalding all my fingertips.<\/p>\n

My body, Lord, is a jack-in-the-box; it waits until temptation knocks,
\nIt eats the poison I had sworn to leave.
\nMy body is an impulse wild, it loves the killer, strikes the child,
\nIt digs up graves that I had hoped to grieve.<\/p>\n

My heart, it hates my body, Lord,
\nFor all the sick gold in its hoard,
\nFor twisting ankles, truth, and dreams,
\nAnd tearing me at all my seams.<\/p>\n

You close my mouth when I would hiss, Your hand in turn I curse and kiss,
\nYour arms embrace me, though I scratch them raw.
\nYou hold me, Lord, when I am fitting, clasp my wrists when I am hitting;
\nThe holy chains that keep me, I adore.<\/p>\n

Madeleine\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

If you want to contact Madeleine please email\u00a0 hkms.mwib@gmail.com<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sanctification \u00a0I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[591,571,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-church-focus","category-wfmucw-hkms","category-wfmucw"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 04:19:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}