God Has Called Us for the Purpose of Sanctification

Note from today’s Bible reading: 1 Thessalonians 3-4

What is God’s purpose for us? A common answer might be that He wants to save us. He certainly desires our salvation, but Paul emphasized something else in his letter to the Thessalonians.

The apostle wrote, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-4). Sanctification is about being set apart for God’s purpose. It necessarily involves being purified of sin.

This is why Paul mentioned the need to “abstain from sexual immorality.” Though sexual sins were common in that time (just as they are today), Christians are to be different. We have been set apart from the world; therefore, we are not to live as the world lives and engage in the same sinful behaviors as they do. This would apply not just to sexual immorality, but to any sin.

Paul continued, “For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:7). When we obey the gospel, we are not to continue in our old lives of sin. The Lord did not invite us to His kingdom so that we could live as if we were still in the “domain of darkness” (Colossians 1:13).

So remember that God has called us for the purpose of sanctification. God will save us from sin, but we must not be content to remain in sin. Instead, let us be different from the world, set apart to do His will.