Christians too often accept God's forgiveness without surrendering their life to Him. To take grace and salvation without accepting the entirety of the new covenant is wrong. The first step for a sinner to find his place in God's plan is to repent of, or turn away from, his sins. However, the plan of salvation doesn't stop there. For the many millennial Christians whose outlooks on faith are both broad and ill-defined, God has a three step process for those who accept him. The first step is Justification, consisting of our acceptance of Christ's blood to cover our sin. With the immense power of forgiveness and mercy that He bestowed on us, many stop at this point and revel in grace for the rest of their lives. But when Paul wrote, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?," he was letting Christians know that even though Christ's shed blood covered humanity's multitude of sin, there was more to be done. The second step is called Sanctification. Where one might argue that God's perfect grace would cover any sin so we can do whatever we feel, the New Testament, or more adequately titled New Covenant teaches us to serve Christ with the commitment of a perfect marriage.
The relationship between Christ and his church changes from Him being our knight in shining armor saving us, the damsel, to a marriage. The marriage now requires sacrifice from us. Earlier, God may have chosen us for any reason that we could not see, but now we must be his faithful wife. And faithfulness is the key. Not only faithful as in not worshipping other gods, but faithful to give him the attention he wants, and to be in loyal service to Him. Many young Christians have no idea that this part of the relationship exists at all, but in reality, the relationship grows stronger as we move along, so in many ways it is as important as the first step, except that the Justification must happen initially.
To clarify, one's salvation is not dependent on sanctification, but a Christian ought to long to dedicate their life to Christ. After all, that is the purpose of Christ's sacrifice. If a Christian does not spend their life in service to God, then their relationship is not living up to its potential. When both justification and sanctification are applied to the relationship, then the third step can occur: Glorification. Throughout the relationship and the struggle to be sanctified, Christ has been shaping His bride into the perfect wife. The relationship culminates into a beautiful wedding of the two into one as Christ is unified with His bride. This realm of glory is rarely captured by modern Christians because they refuse to make Christ the Lord of their life Lord of their life, leaving Him only as their savior. For real Christianity to occur, Christ must be our Lord and Savior.
