"...but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious."

“And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you through and through [separate you from profane things, make you pure and wholly consecrated to God]; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved sound and complete [and found] blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah). Faithful is He Who is calling you [to Himself] and utterly trustworthy, and He will also do it [fulfill His call by hallowing and keeping you].” (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)

To sanctify means to make holy, dedicate to God and set apart for His use. Paul prays for the Thessalonians to be consecrated and set apart through and through. One commentary notes, “The scope is found in the word completely, meaning 'every part of your being.'” [1]

Another commentary remarks, “Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians is that they may be sanctified in all aspects of their life, spirit, soul, and body. Every part of a Christian’s life should bear evidence that he or she is set apart as holy to God. This will result in being blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” [2]

It is in our sanctification that we find peace. As we release the world and allow God to separate us unto Him in every aspect of our life, we grow in the peace that we experience.

Romans 6:22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

We need to hold loosely to the world and tightly to God, surrendering our will, agendas and ambitions. Jean-Pieere de Caussade writes about belonging wholly to God, “A state in which one discovers how to belong wholly to God through the complete and total assignment of all rights over oneself – over one's speech, actions, thoughts and bearing; the employment of one's time and everything relating to it.” [3]

We let go of the world and keep our eyes on the one treasure above what the world has to offer. Jean-Pieere de Caussade goes on to note, “It is to keep one's gaze fixed on the master one has chosen and to be constantly listening so as to understand and hear and immediately obey his will... not employing his time on his own affairs, which he must put aside in order to be to his master all things at all times.” [4]

In Matthew 5:8 Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” Purity of heart is a freedom from all other motives of the world that we look to obtain our purpose and significance from. Jean-Pieere De Caussade notes that those who belong wholly to God are “free and detached from everything, in order that they may contentedly love the God who possesses them in peace and quiet, and faithfully fulfill their duty to the present moment according to His wishes.” [5]

It is only when we see Him fully is our ultimate treasure and are willing to release all else that would distract us, draw us, dull our hearts, or engage us in the world that we find ourselves present to Him in the current moment and seeing Him at every turn.

It is not that we need to disengage from the world in a way that we do nothing but sit around, but that our engagement with the world is based upon His purposes and assignments. It comes from His prompting and direction rather than our own urges for pleasure, power, position, purpose etc.

One author (not sure where I got this from) wrote about the Covenant we have with God, “We cannot control the terms of the contract or the circumstances of our lives and that once we claim the Lord as our God, we belong to Him and not vice-versa.”

Jean-Pieere de Caussade goes on to note that for those who are wholly God's, their participation in outward engagement in God's purposes “is voluntary and tangible yet at the same time innate and mystical.” [6]

They are outwardly engaging only as they are also inwardly engaging with God. I heard someone tell me recently that they had realized that what they were doing is giving God their 'leftovers.' [a]

Rather than engaging with God and the world through our relationship with Him, we engage with the world and then invite God into our lives where we needed help to accomplish our own will and purposes. We give God our leftovers and give the world our best.

Too often we look to God only with our needs and when we are in difficulty rather than as our treasure. We pray prayers like, 'God help me with this' or 'give me this' or 'do this for me.' While the Bible says that He does answer these prayers and give us our daily bread, there is so much more that is available to us.

He is available to us! When Ruth lay down at the feet of Boaz and asked him to spread his wing over her, she was not asking only for protection and provision. She was asking Boaz to marry her and have an intimate, romantic love relationship. And in the same way that Boaz answered with delight, God answers us with delight when we want more than His provision -when we desire Him.

Jean-Pieere de Caussade writes that in disengaging from the world, everything outside of God's duties are received and responded to submissively and with self-forgetting. We let go of our purposes, plans and agendas in order to be fully present to God. [7]

Sometimes we think we are serving God but we have not fully surrendered. What we are really doing is expecting Him to help us with our own agenda and then putting a God label on it.

This was the case of many of the priests and religious leaders in the Bible. Dee Brestin writes that in the story of the Good Samaritan, many very religious people stepped right around the broken and bleeding thinking they were serving God. She goes on to note, “Jesus never saw people as interruptions.” [8]

When we are inpatient with people in their pains and wounds or too preoccupied to listen and be present to them, helping them with their needs, it is a cues that we have the wrong agenda. She goes on to write, “Why do I hold on to my own agenda so tightly? Because I forget that my life must be about Jesus, and not centered around me.”

When God shows us our self-centeredness in serving Him, often our hearts respond in a prayer something like Dee Brestin and Kathy Troccoli's:

“Precious Jesus,

Help me fall

more in love with You,

abandoning

my time,

my possessions,

my old habits,

my reputation,

my anxieties

breaking each

alabaster box

at Your feet.” [9]

Yet we forget that this kind of prayer is often answered in suffering. It is in the death to ourselves that life springs forth. Jesus proclaims in John 12:24, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.“

I come back to the much used scripture verse Jesus spoke to His disciples in Matthew 6:24, "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.”

When God answers our prayer by suffering we are dismayed and ask Him to change our circumstances.   Too often we do not want to embrace our circumstances and look for how we can love God in them but want to control and manage the circumstances around us.

Receiving and embracing everything that happens in life as permitted and approved by God while looking to God for how to respond involves suffering. The suffering of dieing to self and ones own purposes, the suffering to not knowing the answers to painful things that happen, the suffering of grief and loss to things that brought us happiness and joy, the suffering of embracing ones enemies or those who hurt us and responding in turn with with good and blessing...

Suffering is a path that leads us to God. Theresa of Avila writes that without generous suffering there is not advancement [deepening in contemplation and encountering God] in prayer. [10] Suffering is a gift that, when we press further into Him with all our fears, insecurities, pain, grief and disappointment, leads our heart towards being enraptured in His love.  Hah!  So I say but at the moment it is definitely not a thought (at least for me).

Our ability to suffer comes from our trust in Him. And our trust is built by seeing Him come through faithfully in our places of difficulty over and over again. Dee Brestin and Kathy Troccoli write, “In marriage, it takes time to trust the heart of your husband.” [11]

They note that in the early years, we are more apt to be hurt by a remark because we do not completely trust his heart and that he knows completely what you need. But over time, if you hang on and continue in love, you come to a deeper place of love where your heart knows your husband's heart towards you and that His purposes are good. In this place, when troubles come there is peace, confidence and dependance. [12]

Psalm 91:14-16 says, “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him; I will set him on high, because he knows and understands My name [has a personal knowledge of My mercy, love and kindness – trusts and relies on Me, knowing I will never forsake him, no, never].

He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.”

What we frequently look for is God to deliver us out of our circumstances by changing them and making them more comfortable. However, more often, God delivers us in our circumstances. We find a place of freedom and joy right in the middle of the tribulation and trial. He meets us in our pain with His love and presence.

When we lose what we thought we had to have to be happy, we find that He is more than enough to comfort us and fill our needs. Death to what we expected or thought we had to have that is part of the suffering process. The place of our surrender in our pain and disappointment hollows out a deeper place for the presence of God to reside.

We find refuge in God and can proclaim with David, “The Lord is my chosen and assigned portion, my cup; You hold and maintain my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; yes, I have a good heritage. I will bless the Lord, Who has given me counsel; yes, my heart instructs me in the night seasons. I have set the Lord continually before me, because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.”

As we begin to learn to hold more loosely to all things in life as a gift for the moment, we become free to enjoy them, value them, and then let them go. Unattached to the world, our hearts find our rest and peace in Him. As Job spoken in Job 1:21, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”

Teresa of Avila knew this place of resting in Him and holding loosely to the world. She wrote:

“Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing;
God only is changeless.
Patience gains all things.
Who has God wants nothing.
God alone suffices.”

Teresa knew a great deal of suffering in her life. But what she found in it was greater and greater freedom. At the core of her ability to embrace suffering in a way that produced fruit in her life was her humility and trust. She allowed the suffering to draw her deeper in commune with God.

It is often pride that gets us offended when something or someone is taken from us or does not meet our expectations. We feel we deserve different and demand to be treated differently. We want to control and manipulate circumstances rather than receive them. Our strength is in ourselves and our own efforts.

Jesus says in Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” It is our brokenness out of our suffering that drives us to God in dependance. We realize we can no longer do it in our own strength and that our own agendas don't bring true life.

David proclaims in Psalm 84:5, “Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man whose strength is in You, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. Pass through the Valley of Weeping (Baca), they make it a place of springs; the early rain also fills [the pools] with blessing. They go from strength to strength [increasing in victorious power]; each of them appears before God in Zion.”

Lord, we long to find the rest and peace that can only come fully from letting go of all else we hold to. Would you grow us in trust and humility and draw us into those deeper places of commune with You.

“O persistent God,

Deliver me from assuming your mercy is gentle.

Pressure me that I may grow more human,

not through the lessening of my struggles,

but through an expansion of them

that will undamn me and unbury my gifts...” [13]

a. For this person, they felt led by God to fast on fruit, vegetables, nuts and water for forty days. By detaching from the world in the form of pleasure foods and making God a priority, they are finding that God is meeting them powerfully in it. They told me that their relationship with God has never been as meaningful and vibrant.

1. MacDonald, William ; Farstad, Arthur: Believer's Bible Commentary : Old and New Testaments. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1995, S. 1 Th 5:23

2. Radmacher, Earl D. ; Allen, Ronald Barclay ; House, H. Wayne: The Nelson Study Bible : New King James Version. Nashville : T. Nelson Publishers, 1997, S. 1 Th 5:23

3-7. Jean-Pierre De Caussade. The Sacrament of the Present Moment. English Translation. HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY. 1981.

8-9, 11-12. Brestin, Dee and Troccoli, Kathy. Falling in Love with Jesus: Abandoning Yourself to the Greatest Romance of Your Life. Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN. 2000.

10.  Dubay, Thomas. Fire Within: St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and the Gospel on Prayer. Ignagtious Press, San Francisco, CA. 1989.

13. Loder, Ted. Guerrillas of Grace. Innisfree Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1984.