Beware of not acting on what God shows you when you are up on the mountaintop with him. You have to obey the light you receive on high after you come back down into the valley. If you don’t, the light will turn to darkness. “If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). The instant you brush aside an insight from God, you will begin to get dry rot in your spiritual life. Continually bring the truth out into your daily life. Work it out in everything you do. When you don’t, the light you’ve been given will prove a curse.
The most difficult kind of person to deal with is the one who has the smug satisfaction of recalling some past mountaintop experience, but who isn’t working out that experience in day-to-day life. If you say that you are sanctified, show it. The experience must be so genuine that it’s evident in your life. Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent. No matter how beautiful it sounds, it comes from the devil.
Theology has to work itself out in the most practical ways. “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees . . . you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). You must be more moral than the most moral being you know. You may know all about the doctrine of sanctification, but are you putting it to work in the practical issues of life? Every aspect of your life—physical, moral, and spiritual—is to be judged by the standard of the atonement of our Lord.
