Communication is difficult. I’m always concerned that I use the right words, words that most accurately say what I want to say. Was it Mark Twain that pointed this out with saying there is a vast difference between lightning and a lightning bug?
Today’s devotional is about a small word in Philippians 2:12-13, a little word that is very important. Had the writer, Paul, used a different word, he would have changed the means by which a person is saved from the penalty of sin.
These verses say, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”
The word is “out.” Had Paul written “for” I would have given up a long time ago. I know that God’s salvation is a gift, a mercy, and by grace He saved me through faith. If I had to work for it, by now I would have stopped for I’d have realized the impossibility of doing such a thing.
Verse 13 explains that it is God who does the work, and explains why. However, the reading today from Ears from Harvested Sheaves, begins with this startling statement: “None but God’s people under the teachings of the Spirit know what it is to ‘work out their own salvation.’”
He is right. I’ve tried to explain this to others. They do not understand unless they already have experienced God’s saving grace. This verse is about our part, which without God is useless, and our need to obey Him as He puts in us everything that we need to be what He wants us to be.
The reading goes on to say that all who work out their own salvation will work it out “with fear and trembling.” It is in salvation that God teaches me who I am. I know that my heart is deceitful. I know the “snares, temptations, and corruptions” that continually surround me. I knew by grace what a “ruined wretch” I am and know that apart from grace, I would be totally condemned. That alone causes me to fear and tremble.
I also, by grace, know that I need to keep my heart open and willing before God. Grace shows me that even though salvation puts me in a “wide place,” the way of salvation is “narrow and few there are that find it.”
God brings me and each of His children to the place of realizing how rare and sacred it is to be saved. He also shows me that He Himself is the author and finisher of my salvation and that I cannot be any more spiritual than God is pleased to make me. I cannot produce a single godly thought in my own soul. I cannot say godly words nor do godly deeds apart from His input. No wonder Paul says that anything that I do toward cooperating with God will always be “with fear and trembling.”
The fear involves a concern of me deceiving my own self. I know my heart, and I thank Jesus Christ for the assurance that He changes my heart, and that He leads me and teaches me and guides me into all truth. I tremble, both with that fear and with the knowledge and awe of God’s presence and care for me.
This is no light thing to be His child and to work out what He is doing in my life. Even as I do, I know that He does all the work and I am merely a clay pot in His hands.
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