Katie and Robert did a Q+A interview on the Dear Mushka’s IG stories a few weeks back answering some of your questions about theology.
Today they’re defining some difficult biblical terms to help you better understand the Bible and what you’re reading and how we behave as Christians.
Justification
Justification addresses your position before the Lord regarding righteousness. It’s a one-time change from death to life. It has nothing to do with you and what you have done, it’s 100% an act of God and when he moves you from death to life and you are positionally made righteous.
This is where God sees the righteousness of Christ when He looks at you even if your behavior doesn’t change.
Sanctification
Sanctification is the progressive renewal of your mind, body, soul (yourself) over the whole course of your life. This is the process of becoming more righteous throughout your life and is the ongoing pursuit of righteousness.
Why does justification and sanctification matter?
It praises Christ for what He has done. If you understand what Christ accomplished on your behalf and what the Lord credited to you, then you’re able to more fully and accurately praise and worship Him.
If you don’t understand what God did for you it’s harder to appreciate it. So knowing this helps you praise him for it!
It also helps you guard the Gospel from people adding to it. Having a good understanding of these terms and what they mean keeps others from telling you what you need to do to be saved and from adding untruths to it.
These terms also matter to encourage others towards holiness. There’s a temptation to think we’re safe and good, that the Lord looks at us with love and it doesn’t matter how we live, but the Bible makes it clear that this is far from the truth. It tells us to encourage our brothers and sisters to overcome sin. You CAN resist temptation and pursue a holy life.
Do we Sabbath?
We Sabbath following our interpretation of it where we use it to refocus, pause and rest. We like to work from a place of rest after focusing on the Lord instead of resting from work. Of course there are days when we're emailing or doing some work on a Sunday, it does happen.
Christians do it differently, we don’t think there’s a “right” way to do it. We’re not strict about it but do see it as a beautiful tradition. We practice the Sabbath as best as we can to praise the Lord by resting, enjoying our family, trying not to work (I stopped posting on IG on most Sundays).
Our Sabbath will continue to change and look differently over the years but the posture of it will remain the same. Praise and worship!