Day 27

“Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” — PHILIPPIANS 2:12

Love, joy, peace, fellowship, forgiveness and compassion are all beautiful words in the Christian vocabulary. But so are obedience, fear and trembling! Paul uses them here, as words to describe how we live in the will of God.

The command to obedience, Paul says, is to work out our salvation in fear and trembling. But what does that mean? Salvation is a gift of grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and is not something which can be earned by our own abilities. Paul does not contradict that here in any way, but having written immediately before about the humility of Christ, and His obedience to, and dependency on, His Father, Paul continues with ‘therefore’, linking Christ’s actions to what our actions must be. “Therefore…work out your salvation…”.  He explains it with the next verse, “… for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose”. What we are to work out, is what God has worked in. 

God works in us to produce His character and create within us an appetite for what is good. He changes our desires, and gives us (in the words of Jesus) a “hunger and thirst for righteousness”. Righteousness is not a ‘holier than thou’ attitude, but it is our standing and ability to live the way God intended, derived from the work of Christ for us and the presence of Christ within us. It is Christ working in us ‘to will and to act’ that is the power to accomplish what God wants to do. Therefore, “continue to work out your salvation”, but we cannot work out what Christ is not first working in us. 

PRAYER: Dear Heavenly Father, I want to ‘work out my salvation’, not only for myself, but for the benefit of others. Help me to be obedient to You and dependent on You in every issue of my life.  

TO REFLECT UPON: Am I trying to ‘work out’ what I am not first allowing Christ to ‘work in’ me?