The Sanctification Process: Why Sin Keeps Coming Back

Why does the same sin keep showing up again, even after prayer, confession, and repentance?

In this episode, Heidi and Melanie talk honestly about the sanctification process—the lifelong journey of becoming more like Jesus. Together they unpack why spiritual growth takes time, how God uses everyday struggles (especially in parenting) to shape the heart, and what to do when you feel stuck in the same battle.

If you’ve ever wondered why change feels slow or why certain struggles keep returning, this conversation will remind you that God is still working and His grace never runs out.

Helpful Links from this Episode:

• How to Read Your Bible and Pray
• When Fear is Hold Your Back

Episode Sponsor:  ABCJesusLovesMe.com, an educational ministry that equips adults with the materials needed to be intentional in educating children.

Get connected with Parenting to Impress:
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Transcript

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This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Why Sing Keeps Returning

Melanie, Co-Host: 00:00
Heidi, I don’t know about you, but there have been so many times since I've accepted Christ that I find myself thinking, I thought I talked to God about this sin. I thought I confessed and repented and I had victory over this sin. And then sometime later, it pops back up again.

Heidi Franz, Host:
And sometimes it's just an hour later and it pops back up again.

Melanie, Co-Host:
And it's like playing whack-a-mole with my sin. I don't know if you're familiar with that game, but you're constantly just beating it back down. It has been a point of thought and meditation as to why do I still struggle with sin?

Heidi Franz, Host: 00:37
In the Christian life, we call this sanctification. And today that's what we're going to cover. What is sanctification and why is it such a long process?

Welcome back to Parenting to Impress, your go-to podcast to learn practical ways to love God and love others. And impress this on the hearts of your children. I am your host, Heidi Franz, and I'm joined by my dear friend Melanie Schuster. Two moms who have made a lot of mistakes but have found grace and truth along the way.

Salvation to Sanctification to Glory

Heidi Franz, Host: 01:07
Melanie,  I grew up in a culture where salvation was the most important thing. And I mean it's a big deal. It's a really big deal. But then what?

Melanie, Co-Host: 01:18
Yeah, you may have heard of the big three. Salvation is the first one. The free gift of grace that God bestows upon those whose heart have been made tender and understand that they have a sin problem. And the only solution to that sin problem is God's salvation. And then the next step is sanctification. It's a really fancy word that basically means we are going to work this salvation out over the course of your lifetime.

Heidi Franz, Host: 01:46
Yeah. Becoming more like Jesus. It's not something that immediately happens once you become saved.

Melanie, Co-Host: 01:54
And here's kind of the bad news of the podcast. It's not a-one-and-done. I really, really wish it would be. But it's not. And then the last of those third is glorification. And that's where we get to go home to Jesus. So sanctification is really this in-between time. It's between the two bookmarks of salvation and glorification. Today we just want to really take some time and hash out what does it look like to be sanctified as a believer in your everyday life.

Heart Change Not Behavior Fixes

Heidi Franz, Host: 02:30
So just as a reminder, every time you hear that word sanctification, think about becoming more like Jesus. It's the process of taking up our crosses, as it talks about in the Bible, laying down our wants and picking up what God desires for us. I love the verse from Philippians 1:6: He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. And the focus is that God is doing a good work in you. That's that sanctification process. He's doing a good work in you, and he is responsible for finishing it. All you gotta do is just show up.

Melanie, Co-Host: 03:14
The point is true. We don't do anything. When you had the understanding that you are a sinner in need of a savior, God regenerates your heart. He makes it new because now you have eyes to see your sin. You have an understanding of like, holy moly, I can't do this on my own. Sanctification means that you are, I love this term, co-laboring. You're working alongside, working with the Trinity, and to Heidi's point, to become more like Christ. So you're moving on, you're maturing with that regenerative heart, that new heart that God has given you. And the beautiful thing is there are often outward signs of that that we call spiritual fruits, fruits of the spirit. Often there is a tangible demonstration of that change.

Heidi Franz, Host: 04:08
Yeah. And I think where you're talking about the fruit of the spirit, we have that fruit. It says in Galatians that we have the fruit of the spirit in us, but it's that tapping into it. It's that choosing to have love, joy, peace, and etc. And I think the first key point about sanctification is that it's not a behavior change, it's a heart change that God does. A behavior modification, I can do that really well for about a week. But this is an actual heart change where it is something that I'm no longer that person that I used to be, but that takes time.

Melanie, Co-Host: 04:53
Yeah. And I'll give you an example. I definitely am an outer order, inner calm kind of person. What that means is like if there is clutter or just messiness, I find it hard to think clearly. And I don't know if you're aware of this, but children tend not to be the tidiest of little people. There was a huge chunk of my parenting journey where I was really short-tempered. Snappy with them and snippy with them. And it was only through sanctification and the Holy Spirit revealing to me that this anger really revealed something that was sinful in me, which was a desire to be in control of my environment and my people, my children. There's a lot there, but the point is that's a tangible example of how the Lord showed me my sin and He started the journey of, we use a word picture of sandpaper, smoothing out the rough edges. He just buffed and buffed and sanded and sanded. When my teenagers are home and there is stuff everywhere, I could still feel it kind of rear its ugly head. But the maturity is that now I go, I'm so happy they're home. And I can just tell them. I don't have to yell at them. I can just say, “Hey, would you please pick up your stuff?”

Heidi Franz, Host: 06:12
You're not pretending that there isn't an issue, but the emotions aren't controlling that issue.

Melanie, Co-Host: 06:19
Because of Christ's power in me, I'm able to choose a different response. With sanctification, what happens is that choice becomes less of a like conscious decision and eventually becomes just your default decision. That's the spiritual maturity that happens over time.

Heidi Franz, Host: 06:37
That's the heart change. Beautiful.

Ordinary Life Shapes Holiness

Now that also rolls right into our second point God uses everyday life to shape us, to sanctify us. The parenting struggles that we have had, and we've talked about these in multiple other podcasts. God has used a table saw. He hasn't used sandpaper. He's like, we have got to get rid of some of these areas in your life. Because you said it, Mel. It was a control thing. My entire parenting was about how can I control these kids? How can I control what's happening around them? So I create children who follow God.

Melanie, Co-Host: 07:20
We've talked about this in other podcast episodes. The idea of control also most often stems from a place of fear. I don't want my kids to turn out X. I don't want them to be hurt by Y. I need to help them stay on the path Z. Unfortunately, we all know there's no formula, there's no special vitamin you can take.

Heidi Franz, Host: 07:39
Something that God has really been pointing out to me in my quiet time is that the issue is not that I didn't control everything well enough. The issue is that every single one of us, myself, my husband, my four kids, we all have sin in our lives. So you can put a person in a perfect bubble, but the sin in their life is still going to come out because we need, number one, salvation. We need to admit we have an issue. And then number two, we need to go through sanctification and allow God to deal with that sin, not just pretend it's not there anymore.

Seeing Deeper Sin and Lies

Melanie, Co-Host: 08:22
So when we talk about this process of sanctification, I think it manifests in several different ways. Our base physical lives. I can remember going without a lot of really good sleep when my kids were little. And I was not happy about it. I love sleep and there was a point of selfishness.

Heidi Franz, Host: 08:43
I would get angry that I had to stop what I was doing, whether that was sleep or whether that was eat something or whatever it is I wanted to do, I would get angry instead of looking at moments where my kids were having a conflict or there was a need and seeing it as an opportunity to serve and seeing it as an opportunity to come alongside them as a fellow sinner in need of grace.

Melanie, Co-Host: 09:14
There are physical sins. Heidi and I were just talking before we hit record. My eating has been bananas. I mean, so off track. I am still dealing with food issues, gluttony as a sin in my life. You're not alone. Once you recognize what sin is, you start seeing it everywhere.

Heidi Franz, Host: 09:34
Well, and that's one of the problems. Can I say problems - of sanctification is the deeper you get into sanctification, the more you see, the more clearly you see your sin.

Melanie, Co-Host: 09:47
Which is a beautiful gift of grace. Like that's the goal is to continue to experience this refinement. But I do want to call out it is a privilege to be wearied by the recognition of sin.

Heidi Franz, Host: 10:03
Yeah.

Melanie, Co-Host: 10:04
And that is a hard, like, that's a hard sentence to wrap your brain around. Because the world tells us put your feet up, eat the ice cream, binge watch TV for four hours. Like you don't need to be thinking about what a quote unquote bad person you are, sinful person you are. You're fine. You're just a person.

Heidi Franz, Host: 10:22
And you had a bad day. So you deserve it. That's the big lie that I am fighting. The enemy likes to say, you deserve _____. And God says, but I desire so much more for you.

Melanie, Co-Host: 10:36
Or it's not that bad. Yes. The three scoops of ice cream, you had a hard day to your point. Like it's not that bad. You'll do better in the morning. But will I?

Heidi Franz, Host: 10:43
I think we know down deep. This is not what's best for us. That's the sin, is when you reject what you know the Lord is saying is best. You choose yourself over God's best.

Melanie, Co-Host:
And I just wanted people to hear us say, we get it. We understand. We are right there with you. You are not wrong in thinking this can be really hard. On this side of so many years of walking with the Lord, what he has taught me is that alone is the gift because I know it is only through my dependence on him that I can do it. When I try to gut through it in my own strength, it falls apart. Behavior modification. That diet that I picked up, that exercise plan I tried, it'll last for a little while. Calming and not getting angry with your kids.

Heidi Franz, Host: 11:37
Yes. All those things. It really changes when God changes us. Otherwise, it's behavior modification.

Getting Unstuck in the Desert

Heidi Franz, Host: 11:45
 So, Mel, let's talk about what are some things that moms can do to work through the sanctification process? What allows a person not to become stuck?

Melanie, Co-Host: 11:60
That's a great question. The unfortunate answer is sometimes you might get stuck just to call that out and just say, I know I'm stuck. Lord, can you please help me get unstuck?

Heidi Franz, Host: 12:10
But I even question sometimes in your quote unquote stuckness, is that a word we're going to run with it? Stuckness, that that's really where a lot of the growth happens.

Melanie, Co-Host: 12:21
Yes. When you feel like you've been praying the same prayer, you've been asking for change, you even recognize the sin and you're like, Lord, help me. I don't want to live this way anymore. And you feel like nothing's budging, I think you're right. Some beautiful things happen in those desert seasons where you are wholeheartedly dependent on the Lord because you see nothing else is budging. So I'm going to say that's our number one.

Heidi Franz, Host: 12:45
What can you do in this process? You see that only God is your hope. If you keep coming back to God as my only hope, that's huge. But I don't think it stops there.

Melanie, Co-Host: 13:01
No, I agree. In my life, this has been a place where those spiritual habits, those spiritual disciplines help me keep my mind focused on the why. The why is to become more Christ-like. The world is trying to keep us from that. Satan is trying to keep us from that. Keeping my eyes and my mind focused on him through prayer and worship in his word, that is ultimately one of the best tools in my toolbox.

Heidi Franz, Host: 13:28
Yeah. And it's so easy to say, okay, each day you need to be reading the word. Each day you need to be praying. And I'm not talking about that prayer of God help me figure out what to make for supper. I'm talking about the prayer where you're sitting down with the word, honestly talking to God and listening to what the word is saying. And then, of course, being in community with other believers.

I was just reading this morning in my Devo about when we are together with other Christians, we are reminded of our need for a savior. We're reminded of the sin in our life, God's holiness, how much we need each other. We cannot forsake those three: the word, prayer, and meeting together with other believers and think, oh, we're fine.

Melanie, Co-Host: 14:19
And along with that, something that has been instrumental in my spiritual development, which is godly friends who are willing to speak truth. I have been the fortunate recipient of amazing friendships, women who will say things to me, not as judgment, pointing a finger at me, but as have you thought about this?

Heidi Franz, Host: 14:42
Or brainstorming.

Melanie, Co-Host: 14:43
Yeah, or hey, I noticed you've been doing this. What's that about? It is the friendships like that. There's accountability people in my life who have been true instruments of the Lord because in that relationship, there is trust, there is love, there is a foundation of Christ. I've also experienced it from the mouths of those who I don't have that with, and it feels very different.

Truth-Telling Friends and Fast Confession

Heidi Franz, Host: 15:09
I think the other avenue of working through the process of sanctification is being realistic about where you are with yourself, with God, and with others. To confess as quickly as you possibly can when you choose your way over God's way. Take that to God and then don't have the attitude that I have all the time of, well, I'll start on Monday. Or to immediately go, I knew that was wrong. I chose to make that decision. Or last night I did something, and I can honestly say I just went through the motions and then suddenly I was halfway through it and went, Oh my gosh, what did I just do? And to say, man, I blew it. And to start immediately back with that right choice instead of passing it off and thinking, well, I'll come back to that later. I'll eat all the Oreos and then they're gone and then I'll deal with the issue. I mean, I'm not talking from experience or anything, but then also to apologize to those around you, your children, your spouse, your friends, because it models humility, it models grace, it models transparency.

Melanie, Co-Host: 16:35
If our purpose as a parent is to disciple our children, what better way than to invite them into the process of sanctification? Now, clearly, there are some things you do not share with your children, but overeating is a perfect example. Snapping at one of their siblings or you're their dad, losing your temper in the car. Oh boy, my kids have watched me be sanctified to the nth degree in that car. That is a beautiful opportunity to disciple your kids and show them what it looks like.

I will also tell you, they are so quick to remind you when you have not responded in a godly way. And it may irritate the fire out of you, but learn to pray. I learned very quickly that God was using those little faces and voices to put me in my place.

I do want to say, Heidi too, like we have to remember all of this is just blanketed in grace. And what I mean by that is there are certain church traditions that can make us feel or have we have been made to feel that when we quote unquote fail at sanctification, at being sanctified, we have failed God. Yeah. And we are somehow doing it wrong. And I think if you hear nothing else today, please hear that his grace is abundant. It is beyond what you can imagine is enough grace for you. You will never run out of it. And so every time you do find yourself, maybe it's one of those sins, you're like, I thought I dealt with this, and it crops back up. I hope that your first step is to Heidi's point to turn to him and just thank him for the grace to see it, to recognize it, that he loves me enough to care about my sanctification. Yeah. He desires what's best for me, even when I have no idea what that is.

Grace that Fuels a Lifelong Race

Heidi Franz, Host: 18:34
And on the flip side of that, the grace is not to be abused. We don't stay in our sin and think, well, God's gonna forgive me because that's abusing what Jesus did. Talks about that in Romans. But to step out of that sin and go, I desire better for myself. I desire better for my family. I desire for my kids to have an example of who God is and what God can do in our lives.

Melanie, Co-Host: 19:08
When we were preparing for this podcast, I just kept thinking about how often in scripture we're reminded that, like Paul says, I can be content in any circumstance. And yet, sanctification is one of those things where God calls us to reject contentment. We have permission to want more. Yes. He has given us carte blanche. That means like a just a free go, go, go, go to chase after Jesus for the rest of your life.

Heidi Franz, Host: 19:37
Right. And that's for the importance of looking at the entire scripture, not pulling out one verse and go, well, Paul told me to be content. No, no. Paul says to keep striving, to keep working out your faith. That it's a marathon. We are continually running the race. We don't stop and sit on the sidelines. We don't stop for a long break and think, well, I can get back in the race later.

Melanie, Co-Host: 20:08
One of the other lies that the world, the enemy will say is, Well, God made me this way. This is my personality. We have to be really careful when we try to play that card because yes, you are created in the triune image of God. But the rest of scripture, after the first few chapters of Genesis, is very clear that you're born with a sinful intent and the rest of your life is going to be spent deciding what to do about that sinful heart.

Heidi Franz, Host: 20:35
Because every single day, every single moment, we have a choice. Are we going to choose God's way or are we going to choose our own way? Yeah. And that is the Oreo, whether I am going to yell at somebody because I'm angry. And a lot of times, Mel, I'm not even really angry at that person. It's everything else. It happened last evening. My husband said something to me, and I barked at him. He had just walked into the room. He didn't do anything wrong. And so I had to apologize. And my son watched all of this. And so I apologize to my son because that is not who I desire to be.

Make Me More Like You

Melanie, Co-Host: 21:16
Which I think brings us full circle that at the end of the day, sanctification is this beautiful gift that the Lord gives us, where He puts a new song in my heart, a song of salvation. The lyrics of that song are “make me more like you, Jesus.”

Announcer: 21:35
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