Sanctifying Quotes & Sayings

The union with Christ which produces no effect on heart and life is a mere formal union, which is worthless before God. The faith which has not a sanctifying influence on the character is no better than the faith of devils. — J.C. Ryle

However we study or delight in the letter of the Word, it has no saving or sanctifying power without the Holy Spirit. Human wisdom and human will, however great their efforts, cannot command that power. The Holy Spirit is the power of God. It is only as the Holy Spirit teaches you as you read, only as the Gospel is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, that you will be given, along with every command, the strength also to obey it. — Andrew Murray

That mighty Being, who heaped up these craggy rocks, and reared these stupendous mountains, and poured out these streams in all directions, and scattered immortal beings throughout these deserts - He is present, by the influence of his Holy Spirit, and accompanies the sound of the gospel with converting, sanctifying power. — Adoniram Judson

The Lord Jesus loves His people, and when they put their trust in Him, depending wholly upon Him, He strengthens them. He will live through them, giving them the inspiration of His sanctifying Spirit, imparting to the soul a vital transfusion of Himself. - Sabbath School Worker, February 1, 1896. — Ellen G. White

The true Church is not an institution to be kept apart from the world because the world "is common and unclean," but a vital heart of truth and love, beating with the life of Jesus, and sending abroad its sanctifying pulsations until nothing shall be common and unclean. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

I think some people would understand the quintessence of sanctifying grace if they could be black about twenty-four hours. — Amanda Smith

I had a tremendous upbringing and foundation but as others like me have experienced, when you go to college, mom and dad are no longer there to help guide. There were some moments in college that really cemented my own convictions and beliefs. It was a real period of growth and maturity in my sanctifying process. I got married in college. That was a tremendous blessing. Four years later, we started having children and that gives you a deeper understanding of the Father's love. — Aaron Kampman

sanctifying our ordinary everyday actions, making our daily prose into heroic verse."4 — Pilar Urbano

He [Jesus] came to save all through himself; all, I say, who through him are reborn in God: infants, and children, and youths, and old men. Therefore he passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, sanctifying infants; a child for children, sanctifying those who are of that age ... [so that] he might be the perfect teacher in all things, perfect not only in respect to the setting forth of truth, perfect also in respect to relative age — Irenaeus Of Lyons

In another letter he says: A man may be constitutionally meek as the lamb, constitutionally kind as the spaniel, constitutionally cheerful as the lark, and constitutionally modest as the owl; but these things are not sanctification. No sweet, humble, heavenly tempers, no sanctifying graces, are found but from the cross. — J.C. Ryle

The Holy Spirit has a sanctifying influence. The influence of the Holy Spirit tends towards sanctification, purity and holiness. Expect to live a life of greater purity, sanctification and holiness when under the sweet influence of the Holy Spirit. — Dag Heward-Mills

Blood is a cleansing and sanctifying thing, and the nation that regards it as the final horror has lost its manhood ... there are many things more horrible than bloodshed, and slavery is one of them! — Padraig Pearse

It is in some respect greater love in Jesus to sanctify than to justify, for He maketh us most like Himself, in His own essential portraiture and image in sanctifying us. — Samuel Rutherford

He freely gives grace in all its forms, to His people: saving grace, comforting grace, preserving grace, sanctifying grace, directing grace, instructing grace, assisting grace! He gives grace ... abundantly, seasonably, constantly, readily, sovereignly! — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Without sanctifying grace it is not possible to refrain long from mortal sin. — Thomas Aquinas

The sun penetrates crystal and makes it more dazzling. In the same way, the sanctifying Spirit indwells in souls and makes them more radiant. They become like so many powerhouses beaming grace and love around them. — Saint Basil

"Sabbath is not primarily about us or how it benefits us; it is about God, and how God forms us. It is not, in the first place, about what we do or don't do; it is about God - completing and resting and blessing and sanctifying. These are all things that we don't know much about ... But it does mean stopping and being quiet long enough to see - open-mouthed - with wonder - resurrection wonder ... we cultivate the "fear of the Lord". Our souls are formed by what we cannot work up or take charge of. We respond and enter into what the resurrection of Jesus continues to do." — Eugene H. Peterson

It is hard for anyone who has not given himself wholeheartedly to a belief (and I say again, Miss V., that is how it is: you give yourself to it, it does not fall upon you like sanctifying grace from Heaven) to appreciate how the believer's conscious mind can separate itself into many compartments containing many, conflicting, dogmas. These are not sealed compartments; they are like the cells of a battery (I think this is how a battery works), over which the electrical charge plays, leaping from one cell to another, gathering force and direction as it goes. You put in the acid of world-historical necessity and the distilled water of pure theory and connect up your points and with a flash and a shudder the patched-together monster of commitment, sutures straining and ape brow clenched, rises in jerky slow motion from Dr. Diabolo's operating table. — John Banville

The ordinances do not impart eternal life to the believer, but they do confirm, strengthen, and heighten our awareness and enjoyment of that life. The bread and wine are means or instruments by which God quickens us to apprehend, understand, visualize, and experience the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit and his unique ministry of shining the light of illumination and glory on Jesus. — Sam Storms

Amidst the flood of dangerous reading, I plead for my Master's book; I call upon you not to forget the book of the soul. Do not let newspapers, novels, and romances be read, while the prophets and Apostles be despised. Do not let the exciting and sensual swallow up your attention, while the edifying and the sanctifying can find no place in your mind. — J.C. Ryle

FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude. — Ambrose Bierce

It is always beneficial to praise the Lord; it cheers the day and brightens the night; it lightens toil and softens sorrow; and over earthly gladness it sheds a sanctifying radiance which makes it less liable to blind us with its glare. Have we not something to sing about at this moment? Can we not weave a song out of our present joys, or our past deliverances, or our future hopes? — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

True Joy is not the absence of pain but the sanctifying, sustaining presence of the Lord Jesus in the midst of the pain — Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Each of us is accountable to God for our personal holiness. Humbling yourself by letting others into your life and allowing them to help you and hold you accountable will release the sanctifying, transforming grace of God in your life. — Nancy Leigh DeMoss

But beyond a basic minimum, the relationship between income and happiness is slight. Research bears out Maslow's analysis that the higher needs are love and belonging, esteem and self-actualisation. The most significant determinants of happiness are strong and rewarding personal relationships, a sense of belonging to a community, being valued by others and living a meaningful life. These are precisely the things in which religion specialises: sanctifying marriage, etching family life with the charisma of holiness, creating and sustaining strong communities in which people are valued for what they are, not for what they earn or own, and providing a framework within which our lives take on meaning, purpose, even blessedness. — Jonathan Sacks

He had sinned mortally not once but many times and he knew that, while he stood in danger of eternal damnation for the first sin alone, by every succeeding sin he multiplied his guilt and his punishment. His days and works and thoughts could make no atonement for him, the fountains of sanctifying grace having ceased to refresh his soul. — James Joyce

Anne always remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night. It was the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has been laid upon it. — L.M. Montgomery

Marriage is one of the most humbling, sanctifying journeys you will ever be a part of. It forces us to wrestle with our selfishness and pride. But it also gives us a platform to display love and commitment. — Francis Chan

The redemption of Zion is more than the purchase or recovery of lands, the building of cities, or even the founding of nations. It is the conquest of the heart, the subjugation of the soul, the sanctifying of the flesh, the purifying and ennobling of the passions. — Orson F. Whitney

Sanctifying the Sabbath is part of our imitation of God, but it also becomes a way to find God's presence. It is not in space but in time, he writes, that we find God's likeness. In the Bible, no thing or place is holy by itself; not even the Promised Land is called holy. While the holiness of the land and of festivals depends on the actions of the Jewish people, who have to sanctify them, the holiness of the Sabbath, he writes, preceded the holiness of Israel. Even if people fail to observe the Sabbath, it remains holy. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Let us urge on every one who exhibits new interest in religion to be content with nothing short of the deep, solid, sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost. — J.C. Ryle

But if you can fix some conception of a true human state of life to be striven for - life, good for all men, as for yourselves; if you can determine some honest and simple order of existence; following those trodden ways of wisdom, which are pleasantness, and seeking her quiet and withdrawn paths, which are peace; - then, and so sanctifying wealth into 'commonwealth,' all your art, your literature, your daily labours, your domestic affection, and citizen's duty, will join and increase into one magnificent harmony. You will know then how to build, well enough; you will build with stone well, but with flesh better; temples not made with hands, but riveted of hearts; and that kind of marble, crimson-veined, is indeed eternal. — John Ruskin

We can be assured of salvation and feel that assurance aright only as we keep our eyes off ourselves and our performance and fix our gaze on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of true saving and sanctifying faith. — Douglas Bond

In the hearts of fans everywhere, his protectiveness is where his true appeal lies. Edward feels both pleasure and pain in Bella's company: his heart cries out for her love while his need for her blood, the scent of which intoxicates him, and he must fight the urge to kill her to savor it. His agony would end if he were to fulfill her request to turn her into a vampire, but he refuses. He fears it would mean giving up her soul, and he has made it his mission to safeguard her, body and soul. Even when it seems he is bound by a promise to make her a vampire, he will only do it if she marries him, sanctifying the act in his mind.
This magnificent creature, who could have one of his on glorious kind, chooses plain, mortal Bella; puts her on a pedestal; and is willing to protect and honor her. What woman could ask for more? — Laura Enright

It follows, therefore, that the church's evangelism ought to be one in which all the counsel of God is made known to men. We need a recovery of belief in the converting and sanctifying power of the living Word of God in the teaching of the pulpit, and its ability to transform the lives of men and produce in them the lineaments and fruits of mature Christian character. — William Still

I knew what the sanctified life was not. Not a life filled with more rituals, more scrupulously observed. Not more praying. Not becoming a better person, being more charitable, more concerned with everyone else's pains. Sanctifying had something to do with a sense of constant wonder - feeling gratitude and finding significance everywhere, in every action, relationship and object. — Vanessa L Ochs

The Spirit of God draws or leads the sinner from one phase to another, gradually, in proportion as one is found having a disposition to responsive hearing. Grace flows ordinarily from prevenient grace through the grace of baptism through the grace of justification toward sanctifying grace leading toward consummation in glory. The power by which one cooperates with grace is grace itself. In this way God draws all to himself, eliciting a hunger for righteousness and a desire for truth. — Thomas C. Oden

Reincarnation offers a better justification of evil than anything monotheism can offer, but it does so by blaming the victim and sanctifying the status quo. — Patricia Crone

you were to ask Christians around the world what God wants from the people he has saved, most would probably answer "obedience." There is great truth in that answer, but it is not enough. If the sovereign God's primary goal in sanctifying believers is simply to make us more holy, it is hard to explain why most of us make only "small beginnings" on the road to personal holiness in this life, as the Heidelberg Catechism puts it (see Catechism Q. 113). In reality, God wants something much more precious in our lives than mere outward conformity to his will. After all, obedience is tricky business and can be confusing to us. We can be obedient outwardly while sinning wildly on the inside, as the example of the Pharisees makes clear. In fact, many of my worst sins have been committed in the context of my best obedience. — Barbara R. Duguid

In the morning was again distressed as soon as I waked, hearing much talk about the world and the things of it. I perceived the men were in some measure afraid of me; and I discoursed something about sanctifying the sabbath, if possible to solemnize their minds: but when they were at a little distance, they again talked freely about secular affairs. Oh, I thought what a hell it would be, to live with such men to eternity! — David Brainerd

God has a church upon the earth, who are His chosen people, who keep His commandments. He is leading, not stray offshoots, not one here and one there, but a people. The truth is a sanctifying power, but the church militant is not yet the church triumphant ... — Ellen G. White

Because marriage is meant to reflect the great sacrificial and sanctifying love Christ has for his church, it makes sense to connect your married life to a local Christian congregation. — Matt Chandler

Affliction of itself does not sanctify any body, but the reverse. I believe in sanctified afflictions, but not in sanctifying afflictions. — Charles Spurgeon

All my life I have preserved in the depths of my heart a live faith in my Creator, the Defender of the World, in His Sanctifying Grace and in the expiatory sacrifice of Christ our Saviour, but never have I agreed that true religion demands outward manifestations. — Valery Bryusov

The process of sanctifying life could thus almost take on the character of a business enterprise. — Max Weber

When it comes to love, there is the timeworn caution that the very qualities you fall hardest for may be those you grow to despise. With Stavros, she wonders if the opposite might hold true: that this quality she nearly fears - his aversion to sanctifying the past - is something for which she will someday be grateful. — Julia Glass

We have no way of knowing, of course, why some are born in health and affluence, while others enter broken bodies or broken homes, or emerge into a realm of war or hunger. So we cannot give definite meaning to our place in the world, or to our neighbor's. But Plato's reflections should give us pause and invite both humility and hope. Humility, because if we chose our lot in life, there is every reason to suspect merit, and not disfavor, is behind disadvantaged birth. A blighted life may have been the more courageous choice
at least it was for Plato ... So how can we feel pride in our own blessedness, or condescension in another's misfortune? And Plato's reflections should give us hope, because his myth reminds us that suffering can be sanctifying, that pain is not punishment ,and that the path to virtue is fraught with opposition. — Fiona Givens

One makes a gift of one's life and endeavors by sanctifying it with love, and devotion and selfless service. When seeking to uplift others, we are uplifted in the process. Every kind thought or smile therefore benefits oneself as well as all the world. — David Hawkins

People use democracy as a free-floating abstraction disconnected from reality. Democracy in and of itself is not necessarily good. Gang rape, after all, is democracy in action.
All men have the right to live their own life. Democracy must be rooted in a rational philosophy that first and foremost recognizes the right of an individual. A few million Imperial Order men screaming for the lives of a much smaller number of people in the New World may win a democratic vote, but it does not give them the right to those lives, or make their calls for such killing right.
Democracy is not a synonym for justice or for freedom. Democracy is not a sacred right sanctifying mob rule. Democracy is a principle that is subordinate to the inalienable rights of the individual. — Terry Goodkind

No jot, iota, or tittle of the temple rites is otherwise than uplifting and sanctifying. In every detail the endowment ceremony contributes to covenants of morality of life, consecration of person to high ideals, devotion to truth, patriotism to nation, and allegiance to God. — James E. Talmage

Ritual consists of the external practices of spirituality that help us become more receptive and aware of the closeness of our lives to the sacred. Ritual is the act of sanctifying action - even ordinary action - so that it has meaning. I can light a candle because I need the light or because the candle represents the light I need. — Christina Baldwin

Christianity is saving truth and it's sanctifying truth, but we believe that it's Total Truth. It is the truth about every aspect of life from economics to masculinity to marriage. God has the right view on all of these things. — Nancy Pearcey

I believe many Christians are just like I used to be. They are convinced they are allowing the Word to do its sanctifying work simply by a steady diet of sermons and Bible studies. They even love the Word. Still they may have unknowingly practiced such selective application that some places remain inadvertently unprotected. No need to wait until something painful happens. You can change your approach today! Begin aggressively asking God to plow through your precious life with His Word. Don't be scared to do it! Be scared not to do it! You're perfectly safe with God. — Beth Moore

For what you call the Law is but a club of the rich over the lowest of men, sanctifying the conquest of the earth by a few and making their theft the way of things. But over and above these pitiful statutes of yours that enclose the common land and reduce us to poverty to make you fat stands the Law of Creation, which renders judgement on rich and poor alike, making them one. For freedom is the man who will thus turn the world upside down, therefore no wonder he has enemies — Gerrard Winstanley

There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success. — Lord Acton

To love mankind for the sake of God-that has been the most nobel and far-fetched feeling yet achieved by human beings. The idea that without some sanctifying ulterior motive, a love of mankind is just one more brutish stupidity, that the predisposition to such a love must first find its weight, its refinement, its grain of salt and pinch of ambergris in another even higher predisposition-whoever first felt and 'witnessed' this, and however much his tongue may have stuttered in attempting to express such a delicate idea: may he remain forever venerable and holy in our sight as the man who as yet has flown the highest and erred the most beautifully! — Friedrich Nietzsche

According to Wesley, God's grace is like a seed planted in human beings. It is the power that leads them to seek God (prevenient grace); it is the power that saves them from sin (justifying grace); and it is the power that leads them to perfection (sanctifying grace). — H. Newton Malony

By sanctifying History in order to discredit God, Marxism has merely rendered Him more peculiar and more haunting. You can stifle every impulse in humanity except the need for an Absolute, which will survive the destruction of temples and even the disappearance of religion on earth. The core of the Russian people being religious, they will inevitably gain the upper hand ... — Emil Cioran