04/20/2022
Two people I love and have never met. Jesus and Jack Cottrell. Jack says, "On a practical level, we may personally appropriate the Spirit’s power and allow him to work within us by following the Christian’s “eightfold path” to sanctification. The eight steps are as follows: (1) Information. Know from Scripture the ideal Christian life, what constitutes sin, and where your own life stands. (2) Awareness. Know from Scripture that the Spirit is in you, and why he is in you. (3) Prayer. Make each of these steps a matter of earnest prayer. Pray especially for the Spirit’s aid in developing a hatred of sin (Prov 8:13), in growing as a Christian, in resisting temptation, and in doing good works. (4) Desire. Have a sincere desire to be rid of sin and to be holy. Make such desire itself a matter of prayer, and realize that the Spirit is within you to help you develop such desires (Phil 2:13). (5) Surrender. Yield to the Spirit’s power, acknowledging personal weakness. Abandon an exclusive dependence on will power and self-help. (6) Trust. Have faith that the Spirit will really provide the needed and promised power for sanctification (see Acts 26:18). (7) Action. Being fully informed and filled with the Spirit, exercise your will to do what is right. (8) Thanksgiving. Thank God for this wonderful gift of spiritual power, and give him the praise and credit for every victory over sin."
Jack Cottrell, The Faith Once for All: Bible Doctrine for Today (Joplin, MO: College Press Pub., 2002), 343–344.