Thorn and Sanctification

Some of us fail to understand the true nature of the Christian life which is unpredictable and expanding called "sanctification". God does not desire to destroy our wills, but to sanctify them. The primary work of Christ in redemption is to justify and sanctify believers. Christians fail by formalizing faith in measure (works) because true Christian life means sanctifying effects of cross carrying and practical obedience. During the sanctification process, Christians need spiritual training which is forming spiritual fruits that we need to arm themselves spiritually to wrestle against the world, the devil and the flesh. This lack of spiritual training is caused by preoccupation with our temporal lives more than our spiritual lives. One of the biggest problems in the Christian life in their sanctification process is lack of motivation to enjoy real intimate communion with a holy God in an eternal sense rather than temporal sense. God never gets into a position where He must answer prayer against His will. Certain extremists, encouraging faith and teaching others that God has made a unilateral temporal covenant from which He cannot escape that all we need to do is to believe to assure our getting anything we want. Such teaching is in radical contradiction to the letter as well as the spirit of the Holy Scriptures. God never made unilateral temporal covenant but instead, He made unilateral eternal covenant. In an example of Paul's thorn, this is a tough problem for us believers; but if we do not know what it means we may at least know what it does not mean. It does not mean that in refusing to remove the thorn in answer to prayer God became guilty of a breach of promise. Christian spiritual training is this: "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me,'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me". (Second Corinthians 12:8-9). Paul wanted the thorn removed but God wanted to teach Paul that "the sufficiency of His grace" in the worst of human circumstances is that when a person is weak in a temporal sense while the person is strong spiritually by God's Grace in a eternal sense. Reading the New Testament, Jesus Christ never made the sharp distinctions between "temporal" and "spiritual" as we do that one of the false concepts we cling to is temporal. Temporal time does not change us but God does when He changes us from within as we walk in Spirit. Our glory lies in withdrawal from all that builds on dust (temporal). If God had wanted us completely out of the temporal world He could have taken us home at the time of our spiritual birth (salvation).