Friday always seems to come round really quickly on things unseen and this week we've been

thinking about sanctification or holiness and to end the week I want to mention two important

principles of sanctification, two important principles of becoming like Jesus and I want

to reflect on these principles through the eyes of two great Christians who commented

on them and have given me what I think of as two watchwords. I'll mention them in chronological

order. The first person is someone I've mentioned before because I think about what he says

a lot and it's been a big help to me personally. I'm thinking of the words of the great 17th

century theologian and pastor John Owen. Let me paraphrase him. He says that you measure

growth in holiness not by the height someone seems to have reached or the place to which

they seem to have arrived or knew that we actually tend to do that don't we? Now he says

we measure spiritual growth by the distance a person has traveled to get where they've

arrived and especially by the obstacles they've overcome in order to get there. Now it's

no more wise spiritually for a Christian to be constantly taking his or her own spiritual

pulse than it is to be doing that with your physical pulse at least unless you're under

medical care. Looking inward all the time that contend to a kind of spiritual self-absorption

which at the end of the day is profoundly unhelpful. But I've found what Owen says here tremendously

helpful in recognizing growth and holiness and other Christians. Here's a Christian

who seems to have all together as we say. She's streets ahead of that other lady you know

in the church who so often seems to be struggling. It's surely that first lady that's really

growing in sanctification and holiness obviously isn't it? But is it? If you think of her in terms

of the difficulties she's had to face the obstacles that she's overcome the disadvantages that she's

had well maybe there haven't been too many of these and maybe that's a better measure of her

...