SANCTIFIED BY THE TRUTH

We cannot sanctify ourselves. The more we try to be sanctified, the more involved we become with things that are common. But when the word mingled with the essence of the Triune God is imparted into us as the truth, this truth sanctifies us. We have all experienced this. By contacting the written Word that is mingled with the living Word, something is transfused into us and works in us all day long.

Suppose the young people touch the Word with the Spirit in morning watch and then go to school. Throughout the day at school this word of truth will work within them to separate them and make them different from their classmates in their behavior, actions, work, thoughts, and feelings. Something is working within them to sanctify them, to make them holy.

By taking the Word in this way, we have the clear conviction that something of the Lord has been wrought into us. This is not the mere knowledge of the Bible or of things concerning the Lord. It is the reality of the Triune God living, moving, working, and separating us. This makes us different from the worldly people. I can tell by the faces of the young people that they are graced by the Lord’s presence. What a blessing! Every morning we can touch the living Word and have the divine reality infused into our being. In this way the Triune God is transfused into us.

This transfusion of the element of God frees us from such negative things as temper, jealousy, hatred, and pride. It sets us free from every kind of falsehood. This is real liberation, real freedom. As we are being set free, we are also sanctified, separated, made holy to God, not only positionally but also dispositionally. We become one with God because His very essence is being wrought into us. This is what it means to be sanctified by the word of truth.

COMING TO THE WORD DAILY

Daily we need to practice coming to the Word in this way. Like breathing, we cannot do this once for all; rather, it must be a continual exercise. We need to be sanctified unceasingly every minute of the day. This is the reason we need to come to the Word every morning and, if possible, at other times as well. When the word is mingled with the living Spirit in our spirit, we are sanctified with the essence of God.

Throughout the years I have been in this country, I have not been burdened to teach you what to do or what not to do. I have no trust in mere teachings because, according to my own experience, they do not accomplish very much. Our crucial need is to have the Triune God infused into us through the Word. This infusion works to sanctify us and transform us. To take the Word in this way is not a religious practice or ordinance. It is to experience the living Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—being wrought into us through the living Word. By contacting the Word in this way, God is added into us day by day. As a result, we are permeated with God and made one with Him.

SANCTIFICATION RESULTING IN ONENESS 
BY DEALING WITH THE FACTORS OF DIVISION

Sanctification through the word of truth results in oneness. The sanctifying word, the sanctifying Spirit, the sanctifying life, and the sanctifying God are all one. Therefore, if we are being sanctified, we can be nothing else but one. We are one spontaneously because all the factors of division are taken away.

Worldliness

The first of these factors is worldliness. As long as you love the world in a certain aspect, that aspect of worldliness becomes a cause of division. It separates you from the brothers and sisters. Anyone who is worldly is through with oneness. Such worldliness is like a wolf.

Ambition

Another cause of division is ambition. Ambition is like a gopher that works underground in a hidden way to cause damage. Ambition undermines from within. We all must admit that we are ambitious. What can kill our ambition? Rebuking does not avail. The more you rebuke someone, the more you arouse his ambition. I can testify from experience, however, that when we contact the Lord through the Word and allow Him to infuse Himself into us, the truth thus imparted into our being kills our ambition. There is no other way for ambition to be rooted out of us. Day by day the sanctifying truth kills the element of ambition within us. The germ of ambition is in our blood and needs the sanctifying truth as an “antibiotic” to kill it. If our ambition is not killed, there can be no genuine oneness.

I thank the Lord that we brothers are one, not because we have the same disposition or because we have made a certain agreement. Rather, we are one because our ambition is being killed. The hidden “gopher” of ambition needs to be exterminated by the sanctifying word. If we desire to have the genuine oneness in the church life, we need the sanctifying truth to deal with our ambition.

In John 17:17-23 we see that sanctification issues in the genuine oneness because this sanctification keeps us in the Triune God. Verse 21 says, “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us.” In order to be one we need to be in the “Us,” that is, in the Triune God. The only way to be in the Triune God is by the sanctifying truth that deals with all the factors of division. By being kept in the Triune God, we are one. But whenever we are out of the Triune God, we are divided immediately.