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. Owen knew that we actually tend to do that,

don't we? Now he says, we measure spiritual growth by the distance a person

has travelled 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 can tend 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 recognising growth in holiness in other Christians.

Here's a Christian who seems to have it 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 grown in sanctification and holiness, obvious,

...