There is a view and an understanding of “sanctification” that, while true, can result in missing its key element.

1 Cor 6:11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. ESV

Heb 10:10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. ESV

From God’s perspective, the moment we believed and were redeemed we received the Holy Spirit … the “life of Christ”… and were sanctifiED  in His eyes. We were consecrated, purified, made holy, made blameless, made sacred … it was completed. But from our perspective, that was the moment the process of “sanctification” began; the struggle between our spirit and our flesh. Throughout our entire life here on this planet we live that process of dying to ourself.

Rom 6:19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. ESV

Heb 10:14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. ESV

As Oswald Chambers so aptly puts it … The Death Side. The Spirit of God in the process of sanctification will strip me until I am nothing but “myself,” the place of death.  Am I willing to be myself, and nothing more … no friends, no father, no brother, no self-interest; just ready for death? That is the beginning. Am I willing to reduce myself to me and nothing else? Am I willing to strip myself of everything else and allow the Holy Spirit to “sanctify” me … to lead me into becoming the “sanctified” person the Father sees?

In the past I viewed sanctification as the fact that I have been sanctified; saved and set apart for His service. Yes, that is true, but along the journey (this walk with God) I began to ask the Holy Spirit: “What does sanctification mean for me?” And He began to show me …

1 Cor 1:30-31 … And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” ESV

We have been given the Life of Christ in the form of the Holy Spirit; total sanctification. But it resides on the inside and it is up to each of us to “work out” what God has “worked in” (His life – all that He is). Every day we are to continue that process until the day we meet Him face-to-face and we are the sanctified person He has always seen. That is the day that we will see Him as He truly is because we will be as He truly is. As Adam was before the fall, we will one day be! But in the interim it us a day-by-day process of death to self and life to Christ.

Rom 8:29-30 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. ESV

Predestined … ordained beforehand to be conformed to live the Life of Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit to become the sanctified child of God that we were created to be. And it is a difficult but rewarding journey …

God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependence on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away. To live with your “thorn” uncomplainingly—that is, sweet, patient, and free in heart to love and help others, even though every day you feel weak—is true sanctification. It is true healing for the spirit. It is a supreme victory of grace. The healing of your sinful person thus goes forward, even though the healing of your mortal body does not. J. I. Packer