2 Corinthians 3:18 —  But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Myra and I are reading an Oswald Chambers devotional in the mornings, as well as our Bible sections, and his commentary this morning, on John 1:14,”And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” started a train of thought today.

That glory … what has to happen to us that we could behold it? Peter, James and John saw it. We cannot see the glory of the Lord unless we can reflect it. We cannot reflect it, unless we have an open face. Unlike Moses, who saw the glory of the Lord and veiled his face, so that the Israelites – who feared to see it – could not see the glory, we must be prepared to reflect it so that all can see it. There’s another difference between us and Moses though. With Moses the glory was external, the reflection was physical. With us, the glory must be internal, the reflection radiating from the inside, from the heart.
Before we can reflect the glory we must be dedicated, set aside and enabled … We have to be saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Spirit. The process of salvation is pretty well understood, I believe — but sanctification and the filling of the Spirit not so well, perhaps.
Sanctification is a long word for another of those Biblical concepts that is not so hard to explain, but not so easy to achieve. It is the process of allowing God to change you in to the image of His Son by the working of His word. This means that we have to know His word, understand His word and love His word. It’s not something, though, that we can achieve on our own. Wayne Grudem, in “Systematic Theology” makes it clear:

But it is specifically God the Holy Spirit who works within us to change us and sanctify us, giving us greater holiness of life. Peter speaks of the “sanctification of the Spirit” (1 Peter 1:2, author’s translation), and Paul speaks of “sanctification by the Spirit” (2 Thess. 2:13). It is the Holy Spirit who produces in us the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22–23), those character traits that are part of greater and greater sanctification.

Ephesians 5:18 tells us we are to be “filled with the Spirit”. It’s a constant process of renewal. It’s not a complex process. The first step is to want it. The second is to prepare the ground by confessing your sins and repenting. The next is to yield control of every area of your life to the Spirit — and then ask Him to fill your entire being.
Salvation. Sanctification. In-dwelling. The words can be an obstacle, but the concepts are not hard to grasp. Go through the processes and the transformation will inevitably follow. Some though, although it sounds simple, few of us will achieve it in this life!