God's Way of Changing Us

This is from Mark Altrogge's blog, "Blazing Center". It goes nicely with one of the key teachings we've been hearing from our study in James; our sanctification is a process, it is not immediate.

God doesn’t transform us into the likeness of Christ overnight.

He changes us little by little, day after day. He doesn’t drive the sin out of our lives in a single year, but day after day, year after year, much like he promised to drive Israel’s enemies out of the promised land:

And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land. (EX 23.28-30)

I’m grateful the Lord works “little by little.” If God had shown me all the sins he needed to drive out when I first got saved, I would have fainted. He’s driving out different sins today than he did 5 or 20 years ago. When he gets rid of a Hivite, he goes after a Hittite. But eventually, his work will be done. Little by little, Jesus will drive our sins out until we stand before him and all he will be able to see is his own likeness.

Don’t grow impatient under the Lord’s loving hand of discipline.

He’s like a sculptor, turning a piece around, looking at it from different angles, chipping a piece off here, sanding an edge there, chiseling a line here. He’s perfecting the image of Christ in you.