More and more we are realizing the supreme importance of getting the right conception of sanctification-not as a blessing but as a personal union with the personal Savior and the indwelling Holy Spirit. Thousands of people get stranded after they have embarked on the great voyage of holiness. They find themselves failing and falling and are astonished and perplexed. They conclude that they must have been mistaken in their experience. So they make a new attempt at the same thing and again fall. At last, worn out with their efforts, they conclude that the experience is a delusion, or at least that it was never intended for them. Then they fall back into the old way, and their last state is worse than their first. What people need today to satisfy their deep hunger and to give them a permanent and divine experience is to know not sanctification as a state but Christ as a living person who is waiting to enter the heart that is willing to receive Him.
