Devotional Thought of the Day

⁹  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9 (ESV)

²⁸  And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. ²⁹  For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰  And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory. Romans 8:28-30 (NLT2)

“Sanctity, for the vast majority of men, implies sanctifying their work, sanctifying themselves in it, and sanctifying others through it. Thus they can encounter God in the course of their daily lives.” (St Josemaria, Conversations, no. 55)

A recent paper I submitted confused the professor. I had used both justification and sanctification in regards to our work in leading worship, and in regards to making transistions in worship. Bascailly, my thought process was that any transistion in worship needs both to be justified and sanctified in order for it to be useful and beneficial to those who are the church.

My theory is simple, and based on the two Bible passages above. If God cleanses us from all unrighteousness, God is not erasing our past. He is cleansing it, making it righteous, declaring us justified as those works go from be based in sin, to being part of the masterpiece He makes of us.

This is truly a miracle, for most of us struggle with sin, and sometimes, we don’t even bother to struggle. The sin is there, it ensnares us, pulling our focus away from Jesus. For God to take those actions, and use them as a blessing, to use even them for good means that there is an increidble miracle that has taken place.

Understanding this means brings us to a point where we expect to see God at work in our sufferings, in the challenges we face, in the times of brokenness where we don’t want to answer the phone, or find out what tomorrow brings. We begin not to doubt it, but to realize He is there, at work. That means what we do becomes sanctified, it somehow becomes holy, it becomes a blessing.

Fazio, Mariano . Last of the Romantics: St. Josemaria in the Twenty-First Century (p. 107). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.