“Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21-24).
It was waiting for me in my inbox this morning. An email from my friend who is battling for her physical health from a hospital room that’s been her home for over a month now. Her life has changed dramatically in that time. She went into surgery with high hopes of gaining some relief from a tumor that was growing on her upper spine. What she received, instead, was partial paralysis in addition to her continuing fight against cancer.
Her hopes have changed over the past month. Today she lingers with the prospect of a wheelchair and a return home very soon. I imagine it to be enough for her in this moment—to get home to her family and to bask in the warmth of some normal, if only for a season.
She’s journeying down a long and uncertain road right now. A “through and through” kind of work in her own heart and life that doesn’t seem fair. That hardly seems necessary. That rarely feels right and good and pure as it pertains to the life of a saint.
And while I would never want to “explain away her pain” as some part of her purification process … as if there is something in her that “needs” the lesson of a difficult suffering … I do know this, as it pertains to the life of a saint. To the lives of all of us who know Jesus and are walking ever closer to seeing Him face to face.
Our process of becoming like Jesus is a “through and through” process. A word in the Greek language (holotelous) meaning “All, or the whole, completely or entirely.”[i]
The opposite of holotelous is monos meaning “only, alone, without others.”[ii]
Thus, our sanctification is a collective work, not a partial or solitary experience. It is an entire work. A completed work that can only be accomplished through the faithful hands of a peaceful God who seeds our lives, as we go and all along, with the flames of holy fire with a holy end in mind. He is a God who is after far more in us and through us than we are willing to concede at the time of our salvation.
Surrendering our hearts to the way of the cross—to the road of a crucified life—is a costly decision. It means that we willingly submit our flesh to the purifying flames of a holier notion … a better becoming that would otherwise be left undone should we have chosen otherwise—to stay as we are rather than who we are meant to be.
When we say “yes” to Jesus and his cross, we say “yes” to our Father’s “through and through.” Rarely do we understand on the front side of our “yes” what that will look like in the seasons to come. A good “ignorance” I suppose. God grows us in our sanctification. To receive it all in a first moment with Jesus would be too much. Perhaps, would be too hard. Too difficult of a cloaking at the point when our tender hearts cross the line from flesh to faith.
A “through and through” kind of work is a gift from a gracious God who understands that the more we come to know him … that the more we grow in our understanding of just exactly how long and wide and high and deep his blood was shed … the more willing we become to surrender our flesh for the same. When we finally come to the place of a deeper knowing of Christ’s love for us, then we are willing, like the Apostle Paul, to surrender it all—our flesh and our now—for the sake of our completed end.
It’s not easy. It’s not always fun. It’s never predictable, and rarely does it ever make sense. But in God’s hands and through God’s love, of this one truth we can be sure.
It’s always good. It’s always right, and his work in us is always for us. For Him. And for a kingdom’s sake that exceeds our momentary grasp at understanding.
There is coming a day, when our “through and through” will make it through to the other side. God will push our flesh through an invisible barrier, and in a moment’s pause, our faith will be made sight. We will have the glorious truth of our difficult now laid out before us in a way that makes perfect sense and that will leave us panting a breathless “hallelujah” for the process that we walked to get there.
Hold onto the good, weary pilgrims. Hold onto the promise. His name is Jesus, and he is faithful to complete in us that which he began in us over 2000 years ago—perfection. A “faultless to stand before the throne” kind of finish because of his willingness to bow before the throne on a cross.
Oh, what wondrous love is this? It’s a love that calls us to a “through and through” kind of faith. May we all have the good sense and the willing “yes” in our hearts to take up our cross and follow faith through to the threshold of our finish that will birth the truth of our beginning again.
A beginning that lands us at home, at rest, and face to face with the One who created us with such sacred splendor in mind. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. As always,
Copyright © March 2009 – Elaine Olsen
[i] Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary NT (AMG Publishers: Chattanooga, 1992), 1039.
[ii] Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary NT (AMG Publishers: Chattanooga, 1992), 996.
When you were young, you were prone to accidents. I thought age would cure it. I kept waiting for it to happen … a season of maturation that would nip said tendencies in the bud.Soon, you’ll turn eighteen, and albeit your accidents mask differently these days, you’ve still got a knack for knocking things over, tripping on rugs, and leaving a trail of milk and cereal while on the way to the couch. We used to tease you that you would be taking your sippy cup with you to the prom.
