Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Sanctification (02/19/26)
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TITLE: The Missing Microwave Switch... | Previous Challenge Entry
By Noel Mitaxa
02/26/26 -
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He called them his Keenagers, for he could see their youth combined with their enthusiasm for growing in Christ, which was reflected in the insights and the questions they kept raising, and in their sense of responsibility and their willingness to try new ideas.
The lounge room was a familiar sight of comfortable chairs and scattered cushions, and the family photos on the mantle shelf. But beneath the mantle, an open fire had added its own extra warmth.
Pastor Kelvin had hoped for extra depth in tonight’s discussion, for he had found that people shared more openly around a campfire as they watched the energy of the flames and felt their warmth. Whether it was primeval or not, he couldn’t say, but it had worked that night.
Their mood had swung through honesty, excuses, hopes and hurts, as they reflected on how to keep growing and how to help their friends or family members to know Jesus.
And now, having let the discussion run through to supper, Kelvin sensed the need for a positive wrap-up.
“Tonight, we’ve been working through a word that doesn’t appear in choruses or hymns, probably because few words rhyme with it. But it sums up our desire and our experience of knowing Jesus and each other as his followers.
“This word is ‘sanctification,’ which is a process of committing ourselves to God or being set apart by him for a holy purpose; and being transformed by the Holy Spirit into becoming like Jesus.
“We all want to be more like him, but it’s not always easy, especially when doubts and distractions hit while we’re on our own. But this has been common to all God’s people throughout history.
“Brilliant though he was, the Apostle Paul told his Corinthian friends that “we only know in part,"(1) and John, who saw Jesus transfigured with Moses and Elijah(2), and who was given the Revelation to wrap up the whole of time, says that what we will be doesn’t yet appear, but one day we will be like him.(3)
“There’s no microwave switch here, it’s a lifelong adventure, so that as we grow in Christ, his grace in us will nourish people around us with the fruit of his Holy Spirit(4) and attract them to him.”
He then lifted a sheet of cardboard, held it with both hands and slowly moved it around to allow them to see it - a horizontal zigzag line drawn with a marker pen.
“If you feel that this matches your journey with Jesus – going up and down all the time and getting nowhere – let’s start to imagine it as God may see it by tilting it at, say, forty-five degrees.
“Then the zigzags become like a staircase – with steps that lift us and with pauses that give us time to mature in those growth steps. We can’t sustain relentless growth, for that would exhaust us – and it would make us much harder to live with for the people around us who God is trusting us to win to him.
“It’s all part of God trusting us with the ministry of reconciliation.(5) So let's stay excited!”
1 1 Corinthians 13:9
2 Matthew 17:1-9
3 1 John 3:2
4 Galatians 5:22
5 2 Corinthians 5:19
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