You are sanctified...
—1 Corinthians 5:11
Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said that holiness does not belong to a few, it belongs to us all. The truth is that we are sanctified by God, not by our own efforts. It would be like an infusion of oxygen into our souls if we simply believed this and acted as if it were true. We might not be so hard on ourselves when we fail to be all that we can be.
Or, we might live more fully into what we know we can
become. We might be more willing to take creative risk or do what
we have not done before. Or, we might trust that being held in
the great embrace of God makes even our smallest acts of love worthy of the
greatest blessing.
It doesn't do our soul any good to think that
perfection is what
sanctifies us. What is good for our soul is to
live the sanctified life
that comes to us from God.
Gracious God, when I am tempted to claim perfection for myself as a way of being worthy, let me claim instead the holiness that is yours alone.