Equipping Eve: Who Sanctifies?

Is the church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus?

Well, it's true, there's no shortage of candy -coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies.

But beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed

Eve in the garden? In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy, biblical resources for women,

No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies -only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

My name is Mike Ebendroth, and I'm pleased to introduce your host, Erin Benzinger, a friend of No Compromise Radio and a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's Word.

Hello, ladies, and welcome to Equipping Eve. I am your host, Erin Benzinger, hope you're doing well today.

So I have a question. It's not really a theological question, but my question is, where is all this global warming?

You know, I understand why we stopped using the phrase global warming, and then what do they call it now?

Climate change. Climate change. Because if there is global warming somewhere, please tell me where that is so I can move there.

I am tired of winter. Seriously. So actually, as I record this, it's actually springy outside, so that's a good thing, considering it is spring.

That's about to change in a couple days. I think we're going to drop another 30 degrees and get some more snow, but then it will get warm again.

So I'm complaining for nothing, I know, I know. But seriously! Oh, the

Earth is going to burn up. How? How can it burn up when it is snowing and icing in April?

Tell me. Anyway. Moving on.

Moving on to far more edifying topics. I hope you're enjoying spring.

I love spring, and that's why I'm sad that it doesn't exist anymore, at least not here in the land where we allegedly have four seasons.

I get the feeling that we are rapidly moving toward having two seasons, winter and summer, and neither one of those will be moderate.

So that's the way it is, and you know, I'm kind of thinking that's just a sign of the times, and Jesus is coming back soon, right?

We are closer to his return today than we were yesterday. So hallelujah, amen, come quickly,

Lord Jesus. Not just because of the weather, but because of so many other far more important things.

Okay, ladies, so I thought we'd start today with a little devotional that I wanted to share with you.

We often start with something ridiculous and kind of talk about that, and that's all well and good, but let's instead focus on something, again, far more edifying, shall we?

So this is taken from Voices from the Past, Volume 2, and this is a collection of devotional readings written by the

Puritans, so it just kind of pulls excerpts from their works, and I recommend Volume 1 and Volume 2 as well, of course understanding that sometimes when you pull the

Puritans out of context, even if it's a few paragraphs, you can end up with a passage that sounds very legalistic, so just keep that in mind.

So I don't, I wouldn't read all of these to you, but I will read this one because I think it has a perfect balance.

So the verse to meditate on here for this devotional is,

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. That's Romans 4 -7. And this is written by Thomas Brooks, and Brooks writes,

Through the imputation of Christ's righteousness, believers are righteous in the sight of God, full and complete as if they fulfilled the law themselves.

Christ fulfilled the law for us both actively and passively. He not only performed what the law required, but suffered the penalty that the law inflicted.

No one can have fellowship with God until he is clothed with his righteousness. The Lord is as true and faithful with his threatenings as his promises.

As Adam's transgression is imputed to all his posterity who are liable to eternal death, so Christ's obedience is imputed to the members of his body.

Oh, what wonderful wisdom, grace, and love is here manifested. When we were not able to satisfy the penalty of the law,

Christ became both redemption and righteousness for us. This imputed righteousness is the righteousness required by the law, perfectly performed to the utmost iota.

It fully satisfies the Father's judicial anger and fury. Christ's righteousness is so perfect, so full, so exact, so complete, so as to fully satisfy the justice of God, that the divine justice cries out,

I have enough and I require no more. The believing sinner may rejoice and triumph in God's justice as well as his mercy.

If there is no accusation against the Lord Jesus, there can be none against the believer. The second

Adam is able to save to the uttermost all that come to God through him. Christ bestows a better righteousness than Adam lost.

The sinner receives a safer, higher, more honorable, and durable estate than that from which Adam fell.

All the attributes of God acquiesce in the righteousness of Christ so that a believer may look upon the holiness and justice of God and rejoice and lie down in peace.

It cancels every bond and presents us perfect in the sight of God. Can I get an amen?

So you know, here we see just a succinct and beautiful description of the righteousness that is ours in Christ.

And that will come along with what we're going to talk about today, ladies. Remember that when we are saved, we are justified in the sight of God immediately.

We are considered justified, right? We are redeemed, we are justified.

One day we will be glorified. But in between there is a step, if you will, that is an ongoing progressive process throughout our life here on earth, and that is sanctification.

And it is an ongoing process. I know that you may hear some groups, I think they're probably small anymore, and so they're not very vocal.

But there are those who say that you're sanctified completely upon the moment of salvation.

Those people are wrong. They apparently don't read the Bible because, you know, just flip open a page and we'll see that even the people of God are sinners.

David, a man after God's own heart. Well, there's an example right there. There are those who say that you can achieve sinlessness in this life.

You may not become sinless upon salvation, but you work your way and you become sinless. And that too is a lie.

We will not be sinless until we are glorified. Then we will be like Christ. And I think the perfect example of the fact that we are certainly not perfect in this life is if we turn to Romans 7 and consider the

Apostle Paul, who was a very godly man. Yes, in his pre -Christian life, he persecuted believers, but after he was saved,

I mean, he was the apostle to the Gentiles. This is the Apostle Paul. And this, ladies, is what the

Apostle Paul wrote. Romans 7, verse 14. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am a flesh sold into bondage to sin.

For what I am doing, I do not understand. For I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing

I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the law, confessing that the law is good.

So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.

For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.

But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find, then, the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.

For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members.

Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? Verse 25. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our

Lord. So then, on the one hand, I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh, the law of sin.

This conflict, this struggle of the two natures, because we are still fleshly beings, and so we do still sin.

And that's why what Thomas Brooks wrote, what we read at the start, is so comforting, because we do have the righteousness of Christ imputed to us at the moment of salvation.

Not that we sin, that grace may abound, may it never be, to quote again the apostle Paul, but that we take comfort in knowing that we are forgiven in Christ.

Now, again, this does not mean that we sin and sin and sin and just do whatever we want, because Christ already lived the perfect life, so we're good to go.

Anybody who has that mindset is not someone who has been saved, because a person who has been saved is a new creation in Christ, and that means that their mind has been regenerated, and they desire to do the things of God, which is exactly what

Paul wrote about here. I don't do the things that I want to do. We struggle.

We struggle in that process, and that striving to become more and more like Christ is the process of sanctification.

And I'm certain that we've talked about this in the past, ladies, and I think we'll take a little bit different spin on it, maybe not different spin, but different approach to it, let me put it that way, today than we have in the past.

I just think that it's important that we have a biblical view of sanctification and of what it entails and how it's achieved and who is active in that in our individual lives, because I think there may be some misconceptions rolling around out there, or abuses or misuses, perhaps.

So I guess my question, ladies, is who sanctifies you?

Think about that. Who sanctifies us? No doubt, as I said, we're all aware of this legalistic mindset that we must sanctify ourselves, particularly for salvation.

There are those who would say you have to be perfect to be saved. This is the

Roman Catholic Church mindset, that you are constantly working your way to heaven.

So you are saved through Christ, plus your baptism, plus participating in the

Mass, plus the Eucharist, plus the Rosary and the prayers to all of the saints.

And I know they say that they do not participate in idolatry, but let me just take a tangent here that is not in my notes, but it reminds me.

I visited a Catholic bookstore yesterday, actually.

So this is fresh in my mind. It's just a little tiny store nearby that I've kind of always thought to myself,

I kind of want to go in there and see what's in there. And I, ladies, I was blown away.

I don't think I've ever actually been inside of a Catholic bookstore. And so you can imagine if you're familiar with Family Christian Store, which is no longer, praise the

Lord, Lifeway, which needs to shut down so that we can get rid of the Beth Moore shrines, things like that.

You know, those stores are actually more tchotchkes than books. So this is the same thing.

So I use the term bookstore very loosely. But I walked in and I just, it was so incredibly sad, ladies.

It was so, so sad. If that is not idolatry, then

I don't know what is. They had prayer cards for saints that I've never even heard of.

You know, Saint Lucy is like the patron saint of eye disorders and hemorrhage.

I mean, it's just weird. You know, I started picking up these cards.

Well, who's the saint I should be praying to based on, you know, whatever issues are in my life. It was just, it was so sinful and so sad.

My heart just broke. There's things for little tiny babies. My first rosary and, you know, my first communion

Bibles and guidelines and dolls and statues.

And some of them look like toys. You know, they're little statues you would buy for your child because they look childlike.

And it was just, I almost have no words. I keep stammering because I wanted to take some pictures, but the clerk was watching me kind of closely.

I guess I didn't look like a typical Catholic. I don't know what they look like, but apparently she could smell me as a

Protestant a mile away. She kept looking sideways at me, so I couldn't take my phone out to take any pictures.

But it was just, it just made me so sad.

A little piece of me laughed at some of it because it's so ridiculous. You know, you almost laugh at the ridiculousness of it because what sane, sound -minded person would participate in this nonsense?

And that alone demonstrates the type of bondage that legalism imposes.

You know, people are born into the Roman Catholic Church. They don't know any different. And so you have very smart people who engage in stupidity because they don't know any different.

And so that's why it's important that we view those who are trapped in those systems with the heart of Christ.

And you know, yes, we can say it's, you kind of want to laugh at how ridiculous it is, but we have to be careful how we approach those people with the gospel, right?

Because that is our mission field. And you don't go up and make fun of what they believe.

We get angry if people make fun of what we believe. Well, they're the same way. I mean, that's natural, right?

Because they believe that what they believe is right. So making fun and mocking and being snarky and sarcastic about it, that's not helping anybody.

And I hear pastors and speakers do that, particularly toward the

Roman Catholic Church, and I just shake my head because I'm thinking, you are not accomplishing anything.

You are just spurring on wrong attitudes in the people you're speaking to toward those who are lost.

It's just, it makes me so sad. The whole thing makes me so sad. If you want to be spurred on to pray for your

Roman Catholic neighbors, go into a Roman Catholic bookstore, because it was just an incredible experience, and not in a good way.

So anyway, but that's this legalism that, you know, salvation, you're working for your salvation. I often say that Catholics are some of the nicest people because they're working for their salvation.

Now, I have some neighbors who would prove the opposite of that because they're terribly unfriendly, but that's okay.

I suppose there's an exception to every rule. But how sad is that? You know, and we understand as Christians praise

God that we are not saved by our works. We are saved by Christ, and our salvation is completely a work of God.

Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, we're very, very familiar with these verses. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

But then verse 10 is going to bring us again into what we're talking about today. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

God prepared beforehand, so that we would walk in them. So we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, right?

Hallelujah, amen. But we are saved and made new creatures in Christ for good works, meaning we will be sanctified on that road in this earthly life.

It's not on the road to salvation. We're saved. If you get saved and die that same day, you will stand before the

Lord, even though your road of sanctification was a very short one. Thief on the cross.

But if you get saved when you're 20 and die when you're 90, you get to have a long sanctifying walk.

That's just the way that works. And the sanctification doesn't save you, but it is a natural effect of salvation.

We don't obtain our salvation by being good. We are saved by God -granted repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

We are saved by works, but not our own. We are saved by Christ's works, but we are saved then to perform good works because we are recreated, regenerated, and given the mind of Christ.

Titus 3, ladies, talks again about how we are saved based on Christ alone.

3 verse 4, but when the kindness of God, our Savior, and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the

Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ, our

Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we could be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

So again, saved by Christ alone, but let's continue.

Verse 8, this is a trustworthy statement, and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed

God will be careful to engage in good deeds. As saved people, we are called to holiness as a result of our salvation.

We are born to holiness when we become new creatures in Christ.

We must be born again, right? John 3, I'm all over the place today, ladies, so if I'm going too fast, hit pause while you get there, but right now

I'm trying to get there. So John 3, turn there with me. A reminder, ladies, I use the new American standard.

John 3 verse 1, now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the

Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these things.

No one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered and said to him, truly, truly,

I say to you, unless one is born again, born from above, that's what that word is in Greek, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

We must be born again. And when we are born again, we become new creatures, new creations, new creatures or creatures, if you want to combine the two words, in Christ.

Second Corinthians chapter 5, ladies. Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come.

Now all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.

And he has committed to us the word of reconciliation, new creatures in Christ.

And so when we are saved, we are given new minds.

We are given new desires. We desire to please Christ. We, we desire the things that Christ desires.

I just said that in two different ways, but there's a transformation that occurs, right?

You can't have salvation without transformation. The transformation doesn't occur so that you can obtain the salvation, but when the salvation occurs, the transformation will occur.

And there is some sort of immediate transformation, isn't there? Those of us who were saved later in life, we know that because we witnessed it.

We felt it. We saw it. We experienced it. We know it to be true that one day we were one person and the next day we were a different person.

Praise God. And so then that transformation occurs and it is ongoing.

Like I said, we don't become perfect upon salvation. And do you know if you've been saved for a length of time, you know that there are sins that you used to engage in that you don't do anymore, whether it's complaining.

I'm still working on that one. Uh, or, you know, uh, maybe your language or something that you can look back on, you know, your, your feeling towards certain individuals or whatever that that's changed.

And if you look back to a year ago, you're a different person than you were a year ago and a different person than you were two years ago and three years ago and four years ago, because God is sanctifying you.

Did you catch that ladies? God is sanctifying you. Oh, wait a minute.

But we were called to holiness. I thought we were doing this. Are we, are we doing this all by ourselves?

Does God save us and say, okay, here you are saved. Here's your spiritual bootstraps, pull them up and get moving.

Does he say, let's read Ephesians four, verse 17, ladies Ephesians four, verse 17.

So this, I say, and affirm together with the Lord that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their heart.

And they having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

But you did not learn Christ in this way. If indeed you have heard him and have been taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus, that in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the loss of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

And Paul goes on, lay aside falsehood, be angry and do not sin, steal no longer.

Verse 20, let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth. So pull up your spiritual bootstraps, get going, do it.

A Sermon on the Mount that describes the true believer. You do it.

How are you doing on that? You doing that all on your own? I mean, look at all of the commands and calls to holiness.

Turn to Titus again. This time, chapter 2, verse 11.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly.

Righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus.

Okay, so we have to deny ungodliness and worldly desires. We have to live sensibly. We have to do all of the beatitudes.

And oh, this is getting tough. And that can be what we might think when we pull these verses out, these calls to holiness and just focus on them.

God gave us grace for salvation, but he doesn't give us grace for anything else, right? We just, you know, just have to do it ourselves now.

It's really tough to be a Christian. It's so confusing though, because back in Matthew chapter 11,

Jesus said, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I don't understand, but I'm called to holiness.

I'm called to do all these things. I'm called to be like Christ. You must be holy as your father and heaven is holy. And I don't understand.

Christ says his burden is easy, his yoke is light. There was a boy

I knew once who was very zealous for the things of God.

At a young age, goodness, I guess early teens, a very sweet boy and very smart and wanted to please

God. And then I heard a story one day that he said something to the effect of, he wasn't sure he wanted to be a

Christian because it was too hard. It was too hard to be a

Christian. And that absolutely broke my heart. May our children never think that it is too hard to be a

Christian. Yes, we will be persecuted. Yes, we'll have trials in this life. But this statement of his was derived from the fact that there were too many things to do.

In his mind, there was too much to do, too many rules to keep. And he didn't think he could do it.

And I believe that this is because he was sitting in a church that gave lip service to the gospel, but actually preached law.

And constantly preached on the calls to holiness and sanctification and what Christians need to do and what you need to look like.

And you need to be doing this and you better look like this. And if you aren't thinking this and feeling this and praying this way and using these words, you probably aren't a

Christian. And if that's all we ever hear, we will crumple.

We will absolutely crumple and crumble under the weight of that law.

Unless that teaching is balanced with the grace of God. And I don't just mean the grace of God and salvation is by grace that we are saved.

But it is by grace that we are held and it is by grace that we are sanctified.

And we do play a role in our sanctification, ladies. I'm getting there. Don't worry. I am not an anti -no man. But there is a balance.

And if that balance isn't preached from the pulpit, and if that balance isn't understood, and if we are just pulling verses out of the

Bible that talk about holiness and aren't looking at the context and aren't looking at what the

Word of God actually says, we will become absolutely useless for the

Kingdom of God. Because we will be so burdened by the weight of our sin and by the weight of the fact that we are falling so terribly short of where we think we need to be.

The truth is that the Holy Spirit who indwells us at the moment of salvation, He empowers and enables us to live those lives that are striving for holiness, right?

It is the Holy Spirit that has renewed our minds and given us those desires. It is the

Holy Spirit that strengthens us when we are faced with a temptation and we say, no, no,

I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to visit that webpage. I'm not going to go to that place. I'm not going to say that word.

I'm not going to lash out in anger. That's the Holy Spirit strengthening us and enabling us.

Don't you ever congratulate yourself for your sanctification. Again, it's those active decisions that we make, but we can only make those decisions because we have the

Holy Spirit inside of us. We work out our salvation with fear and trembling, but praise

God we're not doing it on our own. We must be killing sin or else it will be killing us because we can do the things we don't want to do, just like Paul.

But by the grace of God, we are able to pursue holiness.

And I fear that there are pastors and teachers out there who believe it is their duty to sanctify the sheep, and that's wrong.

And they sanctify the sheep by beating them with the call to holiness. How sad is that? What a beautiful call for us to strive to be like Christ.

But when it's just used as a whip to beat and bloody the sheep, it's not doing anything but killing the sheep.

Now pastors, of course, desire to see their flock transformed. They're preaching the

Word of God and the Word of God transforms, right? Did you catch that? They are preaching the

Word of God, faithful to proclaim the Word. And the Word transforms, the

Word does the work. And so, of course,

I'm certain that pastors pray that they would see that transformation in their people. Galatians 4, and we know

Paul did, verse 19, my children with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you.

Of course, a pastor desires that, desires to see it.

But he cannot sanctify his people. It's not his job.

John MacArthur recently preached a sermon from Galatians 4, actually. And he said, so how do we sanctify our people?

I bristle a little bit at that comment, just because, again, you can't sanctify your people.

The Holy Spirit ultimately is the one who is sanctifying and is working within us to sanctify. But I understand where he's going with this, and I wholeheartedly agree with what he says after this.

He says, how do we sanctify our people? And he's speaking to pastors. This was at the Shepherds Conference here in 2018.

He said, do we need to be more demanding of them? Do we need to read the commandments with a little bit more force?

Do we need to develop more self -discipline? Do we need to create more accountability? We closed our

Shepherds Conference last year by saying that what we really need to do is just love

Christ more. So it's not putting demands on the people.

It's showing them Christ so that they love him more. And Jesus himself said, if you love me, you keep my commandments.

Bingo. The pastor's job is to preach the word and show

Christ to his people from the word. And when the people continue to see

Christ as revealed through the word of God, as lived out through the pastor's life and the lives of their elders and their leaders and others, they love

Christ more. And as we love Christ more, we desire to serve him well and better each day, and we strive for holiness.

It's like a domino effect, right? The pastor spurs the people to holiness by showing them

Christ. Pastor does not sanctify his people. Sorry. I know. I probably just lost half of my listeners.

So for the two of you still listening, that a pastor can show his people

Christ and should show his people Christ, love Christ more, show the people Christ, cause them to love

Christ more. Sanctification follows. A pastor who understands this sees himself as a sinner as well, and understands his true place as an under shepherd of the

Lord Jesus Christ. So where does that leave us? So, okay, the pastor can't really sanctify us.

I can't just expect I'm going to be sanctified by going and sitting in church for an hour each week. Okay. God sanctifies me, but yet I'm supposed to be active.

What's happening? Well, we pursue sanctification by the means that God has given us.

And the extent of our sanctification depends on the extent that we use those means, right?

If you don't ever pick up your Bible, then you can't expect to be transformed by the word of God. If you don't attend church, again, you can't expect to be transformed by the word of God.

You can't expect to be transformed by your fellowship with other believers. And those are two of the means of sanctification.

And there are many, many. And I'm going to point out, let's see,

I think there are five of you, five, five of you. I think there are five means of sanctification that are highlighted in a book that I think

I've mentioned before, but I always come back to it. And it's written by Mike Riccardi, who is a teacher out there at Grace Community Church, and at the seminary,

I believe. And the book is entitled Sanctification, The Christian's Pursuit of God -Given Holiness. And what I love about this book, when

I first saw the title, I thought, it can't possibly be a book about law, because I know that's not what Mike Riccardi teaches, and it's not.

He points us to Christ. It's such a great book, and it's short, and it's easy to read, and you'll love it.

So I recommend it. And Mike says here that he gives three means of sanctification.

The first is scripture, again, because scripture reveals Christ to us. The second means he gives is prayer.

Prayer, right? That's how we fellowship with God. And then he says fellowship is the third means, that would be fellowship with one another.

The fourth means he gives is providence. And here he says, because it might not be clear to you, he says, scripture is clear that all the providential workings of God serve as a means of our growth and holiness.

And Romans 8, 28, think about it. God causes all things to work together for good to those who love him.

And so we think of that in times of trial. Those are ordained by God. That is God's providence that we are going through trials, and that is for our sanctification and our growth.

So are times of joy. And then the fifth means that Riccardi gives is obedience.

Obedience. And we'll get there. So again, that's not just pulling yourself up by your own spiritual bootstraps.

But when we forsake sin, says Riccardi, we enjoy

Christ more. And isn't that true? We know that we're in sin, and we know we're in sin, but we're not repenting of it.

We're not actively trying to mortify that sin. We're separated from God. There's a separation there. And when we forsake sin, we enjoy

Christ more. And then

Riccardi ends this section. He says, quote, therefore, we conclude that while the spirit employs various means of sanctifying the believer, beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ is the chief foundational and primary means which breathes life and efficacy into all the other means.

Did you catch that? Beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ, that's the foundational means and breathes life and efficacy into the other means.

That's just phenomenal. I love that. He says, looking unto Jesus is the great means of grace by which all other means find their potency.

That's a quote from Joel Beakey. He, Christ himself, is the fount of all spiritual life and growth.

And in this way, his supremacy and sufficiency are magnified in progressive sanctification.

And then as part of his conclusion,

Riccardi writes, as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, we are conscious that it is the Holy Spirit of God who is working within us.

And he works by illumining the glory of Christ to the eyes of our hearts, winning over our affections by the delightfulness and beauty of that glory.

And then our affections inform and direct our wills so that as a result, we might will and work for his good pleasure.

And that's what I want us to see, ladies. That's what I want us to see is the Holy Spirit working within us, daily transforming us, spurring us on to turn to these means, but to ultimately look to that foundational means, beholding the glory of God in Christ.

That breathes life into our reading and study of scripture, breathes life into our prayer life, breathes life into our fellowship with other believers, breathes life into our understandings of the providence of God and his activity in our lives, and breathes life into our obedience because we desire to serve that Christ well.

So ladies, I just encourage you to not let yourself get down if you constantly hear how you are to be holy, do this, do that, do this and that.

Remember, it is the Holy Spirit working within you. He is actively working to make us actively work.

God did not save you and then just let you go. And he's not just looking on from afar to see how well you're going to do in this life at that sanctification thing.

He has given you the power and the ability to grow in holiness.

So let us look to Christ and let his love and loveliness spur us on to lives of holiness.

Okay, ladies, that's all I have for today. Don't forget to check us out online, equippingeve .com.

Check us out on Facebook and Twitter. That's at Equipping Eve. And until next time, ladies, get in your Bibles, get on your knees and get equipped.

Thanks for listening. Is the church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus?

Well, it's true. There's no shortage of candy -coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies.

But beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed

Eve in the garden? In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy biblical resources for women,

No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies -only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

My name is Mike Abendroth, and I'm pleased to introduce your host, Erin Benzinger, a friend of No Compromise Radio and a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's word.