One of my favorite things to do is create things, specifically crosses (the Lord’s choice) out of metal. When I create with metal, the Lord speaks! I’m not the best welder so I had to grind down my welds on the crosses (it adds some neat character anyway). As I was grinding the welds on the first cross, the Lord said, “This is sanctification. The daily grinding away of the flesh until perfection.” Biblically ‘flesh’ is speaking to our natural desires and/or our worldly desires, so the image of the “daily grinding away of our flesh” was really a neat picture of the process.

Most of us know that sanctification is a process and part of that process is transformation. If you imagine my metal cross with some ugly bumps scattered here and there – our fleshly desires – then imagine the transformation of the metal as I used the grinder to remove those ugly bumps. It was a process. This process is sometimes where the Church goes overboard in grace giving and not calling out sin because we are all in the ‘process’ that won’t be completed until Jesus comes once and for all. Yes, those who believe in Jesus are in this process, but this is a process that brings about transformation. Transformation is change!