Empowering Grace
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Thes. 5:23
Empowering grace is Jesus enabling us to overcome temptation, make righteousness right choices, and obey the commands of our heavenly Father. Grace makes it possible for us to do “the righteous requirements of the Law†(Rom. 8:3-4), be a conduit of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), and serve as Christ’s witness in the world (Acts 1:8).
The meaning of sanctification is that the Son of God is formed in us (Galatians 4:19); then our human nature has to be transfigured by His indwelling life, and this is where our action comes in. We have to put on the new man in accordance with the life of the Son of God in us.
If we refuse to be sanctified, there is no possibility of the Son of God being manifested in us, because we have prevented our lives being turned into a Bethlehem; we have not allowed the Spirit of God to bring forth the Son of God in us.
Oswald Chambers, Our Brilliant Heritage (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996), 73.