The moment you and I trusted Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, we were pronounced in the court of heaven as perfectly holy because Christ took on our sin and imparted to us His righteousness. Then the Holy Spirit starts a lifelong process within us called sanctification so that we become more like Jesus from the inside out. In this process of sanctification, we need to actively yield to the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to grow in Christ.

We also need to note that it is possible to ignore, grieve, and quench the Holy Spirit in our lives. When this happens, our spiritual growth and journey go into reverse. When it comes to our spiritual health and development, there is no neutral; either we move forward with the Holy Spirit or we move backward and risk being drawn into the sinful world system.

In this passage, Paul warns the church family in Thessalonica about this danger.