Holiness: For the Will of God Is Your Sanctification – 1 Thessalonians 4:3 [Annotated, Updated]

by J.C. Ryle

Another common cause of the absence of assurance is slothfulness about growth in grace. I think many true believers hold dangerous and unscriptural views on this point. I do not mean that they do so intentionally, but they do hold them. Many people seem to think that once they are converted, they do not have much more to attend to. They think that a state of salvation is a kind of easy chair in which they can just sit still, lie back, and be happy. They seem to think that grace is given to them that they may enjoy it, and they forget that it is given, like a talent, to be used, employed, and improved. Such people lose sight of the many direct commands to increase, to grow, to abound more and more, to add to our faith, and similar commands; and in this condition of doing little, this state of mind of sitting still, I never marvel that they miss assurance. I believe it should be our continual aim and desire to go forward, and our watchword on every returning birthday and at the beginning of every year should be, Continue to grow (1 Thessalonians 4:1). We should desire more knowledge, more faith, more obedience, and more love. If we have brought forth thirtyfold, we should seek to bring forth sixty; if we have brought forth sixty, we should strive to bring forth a hundred (Matthew 13:23). The will of the Lord is our sanctification, and it ought to be our will, too (1 Thessalonians 4:3). One thing that we can depend upon is that there is an inseparable connection between dilig...