As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness. (Psalm 17: 15)

Salvation is the point at which we become members of the body of Christ and the family of God. Sanctification, on the other hand, is the process by which we become like Christ. During this life long process, we move from merely believing like Him to behaving like Him. We grow from reciting words about Him to resembling Him. We graduate from receiving Him to representing Him.

In other words, we know that we have grown to spiritual maturity when we take on His likeness. Listen to what the psalmist says: “I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness.” (Psalm 17: 15) The words “when I awake” suggest that the writer is speaking about waking out of the sleep of death and seeing the Lord’s face in righteousness in heaven. This very well may be true.

Yet, it is also true that spiritual maturity develops in such a way that one day you wake up and look in the mirror and behold a person who has been in the making for many years. This person staring back at you has the likeness of Christ. (Have you ever walked pass a mirror and noticed that you look just like your mom or dad.)

Our aim and goal in life is not to be like Mike, but to be like the master. For this psalmist and for us, what should satisfy the most is to awake one day and to realize that we actually have the likeness of Christ.

“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (I John 3: 2)