A Witness to the Rhythm of Sanctification
I didn’t expect God to test my faith at a car dealership.
I didn’t expect the Spirit to expose the old man
while I stood under fluorescent lights
talking about trade-in values
and engine replacements
and dealership policy.
But sanctification rarely happens where we imagine ourselves being heroic.
It happens in the places where our reflexes still belong to the flesh
and where “the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2–4).
Let me tell you what happened.
A few years ago, I bought a Jeep Rubicon JL for $52,000.
A beast of a vehicle — lifted, armored, tuned,
built for extreme off-road adventures I always dreamed of…
but never actually took.
What the dealer never disclosed
was that the previous owner’s aftermarket turbo kit
had blown the engine,
and a brand-new engine had been installed
just before I bought it.
Legally, ethically, financially —
I should have been told.
I wasn’t.
And I could have detonated the dealership for that.
But I swallowed it.
I tried to be gracious.
I did what believers do when they’re trying to honor Christ:
I “let it go.”
Then life happened.
A $2,600 head unit failure.
Both batteries replaced.
And in four years, I put only 4,000 miles on the Jeep.
So when my wife and I walked into a Honda dealership today
to look at a new Accord,
I carried all THAT in my chest —
Not bitterness,
but the quiet sense that I had been wronged,
and it was finally time for something fair to happen to me.
Beautiful car.
Perfect fit.
Everything looked right.
Then came the appraisal.
I didn’t have the Jeep with me.
But I did have my Facebook Marketplace listing —
the one showing the $25,000 in mods
and, in a rare moment of honesty,
a brief note that the engine had been replaced.
I had forgotten I wrote that.
At the dealership, I didn’t bring it up.
Why should I?
They were going to lowball me anyway.
I told myself the familiar lines we all know:
“Dealers always find something wrong.”
“They’re going to shave thousands off regardless.”
“These people live and breathe this stuff — nothing surprises them.”
“I’m not lying… I’m just not volunteering.”
Every reader knows this mindset.
You’ve lived it.
Justified it.
Argued with it inside yourself.
This is where the old man feels most alive:
in the gray spaces
that don’t feel gray
when you’re standing in them.
Then the salesman came back
holding his tablet.
“Because the engine was replaced,” he said,
“we’d have to wholesale it.
We can’t retail a vehicle that’s not factory.
We’d have to stand behind it.”
If you’ve ever traded a car,
you know the tone exactly.
Not hostile.
Not accusatory.
Just industry logic wrapped in professionalism.
But inside me?
Something collapsed.
Because in that moment,
I thought:
“How did he find out?”
See — I had searched the CarFax.
Nothing.
No record of the engine swap.
No red flags.
So when the dealer cited the engine replacement
as the reason for a rock-bottom trade-in offer,
the old man inside me panicked.
My “cover” was blown.
Not because the dealer caught me —
but because my own ad caught me.
I had forgotten I told the truth once
and now the truth was exposing the lie I was trying to sell today.
THE INVOCATION THAT REVEALED EVERYTHING
What came out of my mouth next
was not courage.
Not righteousness.
Not integrity.
It was shame wearing Christian clothing.
I said:
“Of course I knew you’d find out when you ran the VIN.
I wasn’t trying to deceive you —
I’m a Christian, and I always try to be honest.”
God help me.
I invoked the name of Jesus
to soften the blow of being found out
by my own words.
The dealer didn’t accuse me.
He didn’t corner me.
He didn’t press me.
But in that split second,
my reflex was to protect my image —
not my integrity.
It wasn’t premeditated hypocrisy.
It wasn’t rebellion.
It was the old reflex —
the one the Spirit is killing —
reaching for the wheel again.
And the Spirit struck cleanly:
This isn’t about a Jeep.
This isn’t about Honda.
This isn’t about trade-in value.
This is about YOU.
This is the testing of your faith.
This is the exposure you prayed for.
WHY THAT MOMENT WAS A “RARE” HONESTY
When I wrote the ad months ago,
that small line about the engine replacement
was not a triumph —
it was a tug-of-war.
Part of me — the new man —
wanted to walk in the light.
To tell the truth plainly.
To stop shading, shaping, managing outcomes.
So I put it in.
But another part of me — the flesh, the old conditioning —
couldn’t bear to let that truth stand unvarnished.
So I wrapped it in softer language:
“upgraded engine.”
It wasn’t an upgrade.
It was a replacement.
But that one word let me feel honest
without actually being honest.
That’s why it was a “rare” honesty —
not because truth is rare in me,
but because truth honest enough to cost me something
is rare in any of us
when the old habits of the body aren’t fully crucified yet
(“put off the old man… and put on the new” – Ephesians 4:22–24).
When the dealer quoted my own ad back to me,
I realized something:
The new man had told the truth…
but the flesh had tried to smuggle deceit in beside it.
And God exposed BOTH.
Not to shame me —
but to finish what He started.
WHEN GOD TESTS YOU IN THE PLACES YOU THINK YOU’RE STRONG
I thought I was past this.
I thought all the confession, surrender, cleansing, Scripture,
meant this reflex had been tamed.
But the old man —
crucified, dethroned, defeated —
still twitches
when resentment whispers its poisoned logic.
And God — in love —
presses precisely where resurrection life
has not yet taken full ground.
Sanctification isn’t shame.
It isn’t humiliation.
Sanctification is God showing you the wiring
so He can rewire it.
ANY believer can fall here—
Not because we are wicked,
but because we are human.
This is where most Christians lose the quiet battles
that weaken them for the loud ones.
Not in crisis.
Not in persecution.
Not in martyrdom.
In dealership offices
and tax forms
and household arguments
and moments where pride aches
and justification whispers
and resentment feels righteous.
If we cannot stand in the small tests,
we WILL collapse in the great ones.
This is Scripture.
This is reality.
God is training us for the hour to come.
The early church didn’t stumble into martyrdom
by accident.
They had already surrendered
in a thousand small unseen moments
long before Rome demanded their lives.
Daily death is what forges final courage.
If we panic under mild pressure,
how will we stand under severe pressure?
If we flinch at tiny exposures,
how will we confess Christ
when the world demands we deny Him?
Sanctification is not punishment.
Sanctification is preparation.
THE MERCY OF EXPOSURE
I didn’t walk out condemned.
I walked out CLEAN.
God wasn’t humiliating me.
He was liberating me.
You cannot kill what you won’t face.
You cannot surrender what you won’t name.
You cannot crucify a reflex you justify.
Exposure is mercy.
Confession is freedom.
Surrender is power.
The cross is not your enemy.
The cross is your escape.
You have stood where I stood.
Maybe not with a Jeep.
But with:
- A softened truth
- A justified omission
- A mask you didn’t want to wear
- A compromised moment
- A reflex that surprised you
- A sense of being justified because life has been unfair
You know the feeling.
And you ALSO know:
You long to be clean.
You long to be free.
You long to walk in the light without flinching.
This is the way:
Exposure → Surrender → Cleansing → Strength
This is the testing of your faith.
Not to condemn you,
but to prepare you
for the hour when faith will cost something.
AND NOW — FREEDOM
I intend to go back to that dealership.
Not for a better offer.
Not to argue.
Not to justify myself.
But to confess.
Because the man who hides nothing
fears nothing.
This is what a Christian IS:
not a mask-wearer,
but a truth-walker.
The courage to confess doesn’t glorify the confessor —
it liberates the listener.
Revival never begins with a sermon.
It begins with a confession.
And this —
THIS moment —
was a testing of my faith.
The very kind James writes about.
May yours be tested too.
And may you come forth as gold.