What is it like to live a life formed by sanctifying grace? It’s not us trying harder every day to be like Jesus. It is Jesus graciously giving us His life as we give Him our lives (Ephesians 1:3; Colossians 2:9-10).  

Our everyday holiness is not based in our own behavior. When we’re sanctified, the source of our behavior is Jesus’s life. His prayer is fulfilled: “I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them” (John 17:26).

Everyday holy living is not us striving to do our best, but receiving God’s “Best Gift” of His gracious presence. Everyday holiness is walking face to face with Jesus in personal friendship. Holy living is abiding, dependence upon, mutual indwelling, fellowship and shared life with the Triune God.

Being entirely sanctified is being complete and whole. The Holy Spirit integrates our disintegrated lives through His indwelling. As an overflow of His healing love for us, He pours the character and the very life of Jesus into our life. The sanctified life is a relationship, not merely an experience. 

“As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love” (John 15:9-10 NKJV). 

To abide in Christ is to abide in love. Our lives of grace diffuse holy love throughout every sphere and everyday moments when we are entirely sanctified — as we obey God’s Word. When we manifest love in our everyday living, that is a result of abiding in Jesus, and Jesus abiding in us.

The Bible frequently gives descriptions of holiness in our everyday living (Psalm 15, Philippians 1-2, Ephesians 4-5, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 13, Matthew 5-7). For those lists to become real in our lives, we must obey them. How can we obey these instructions for everyday holy living if we’re not abiding in His Word? “If you abide in My Word, you are My disciples indeed” (John 8:31 NKJV). 

Something that’s been life-changing for me is to have a notebook nearby as I read my Bible each morning. Not a devotional book, but the actual living Word of God. As you read, write down the commands and instructions in your notebook. Thank God for revealing to you His ways and tell Him you will obey them as He enables you by filling you with His life.

“Let me hear Your lovingkindness in the morning;

For I trust in You;

Teach me the way in which I should walk;

For to You I lift up my soul” (Psalm 143:8 NASB).

How to Live a Holy Life in Daily Life:

First there must come a “crisis” of decision when you choose to surrender and abide in Jesus once and for all. This experience must continually be cultivated.

• Yield all of your being to Jesus; acknowledge that you belong to Him and not to yourself.
• Receive His life freely; His grace is fully offering Himself to you every minute.

Then there will be lifelong progress and growth in knowing love with the Triune God. Intimate abiding and belonging must be daily cultivated with:

• Adoring love for Jesus Christ
• Surrender to and trust in Jesus’ Lordship
• Continuous listening to His voice in His Word
• Faithful application of what you’ve heard
• Hourly obedience to His ways:
  • Complete honesty
  • Complete purity
  • Complete unselfishness
  • Complete love

These are impossible in our own strength and will. But we don’t live out of ourselves anymore; we live in Christ and He lives in us. 

One of my favorite sections of scripture to feed upon for holiness in everyday living is Ephesians 3:16-20 (NASB); 4:1-3, 31-32:

[I pray] that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner self, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us … lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace …  Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior.  Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

The break imposed between chapters 3 and 4 interrupts the critical connection clarifying that we can live a worthy life  as it is listed in chapter 4 because, and only if, we are living in the intimate abiding that is described at the end of chapter 3. We can love and forgive just as God does? Yes. Because by grace, every day Jesus is living His holy love through us to others.

I once heard someone say, “To be sanctified is not merely a way of living; it is God Himself living in us.”

Questions

1. Where in my daily life am I most tempted to approach holiness as “trying harder,” rather than receiving and abiding in the life of Christ?
2. What specific practice could help me more faithfully listen to God’s Word and respond in obedience through complete honesty, purity, unselfishness and love?

Photo: Jacob Wackerhausen/Getty | This article was titled “Sanctifying Grace for Everyday Life” in the October 2026 issue of The War Cry.