Believe it or not, everybody who believes in Jesus is a saint. Most people think that to be a saint they must be made perfectly and permanently holy, but actually the ancient Greek words hagios and hagiazo, which are translated as "saint" and "sanctify" in the New Testament, both mean to be cleansed and separated and set aside for further use. We may not be perfect or sinless saints, but we're cleansed and made holy by His blood. Jesus takes us, dirty as we are with sin, and He washes away our sins with His blood and our evil thoughts with His Word (1 John 1:7; Revelation 7:14; Ephesians 5:26).

Sanctification is not just a one-time thing that takes place when you receive salvation. It is a constant process. When Jesus washed His disciples' feet at the Last Supper (John 13:4-12), He was illustrating that even after we get saved and He cleanses us of our sins, if we wade through the filth of this world as we serve Him, we have to have a little bit of washing every day. Is there ever a day that passes that we don't sin?—Not really. We're human, so daily He has to cleanse us—our minds, our thoughts, our bodies, our actions, our words. If we want Him to continue to use us, we have to be washed and set aside again and again.