Who is doing the work?

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but 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 work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13)

This interesting NT passage begs the question: what is my part in doing the work and what is God's part? How do I know for certain that God is working in me? The answer may be obvious to some, but there are other verses that make this question more complicated.

Another passage from the OT quotes the people asking God a question and then His response. They said, “Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?” God answers:

Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord? (Isaiah 58:3–5)

They were going through the motions so it looked like obedience, but God could see the motivation of their hearts. Their fasting was useless, even harmful.

I’ve tried to illustrate this with taking a pie to a new neighbor. I could be truly wanting to welcome this person and demonstrate the love of God, or I could be seeking a compliment on my pie-baking skills. However, the last time I said this, those listening tried to make my selfish reason a virtue! They did not see it as God saw the fast described in Isaiah 58:3. Were they blind to the subtlety of walking in the flesh that is intent on glorifying self?

God’s grace is a gift that enables us to do His will. It is like the hand in a glove. We do the work, but He supplies the will and the ability. This should make me say things like:

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)
For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (Colossians 1:29)
For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ. (Romans 15:18–19)

God wants me to press on by grace and in the motivation and power of the Holy Spirit, not according to my flesh, whether the latter is overtly selfish or hides that motivation under a pious pretension. I am not to think highly of myself but be content and even glory in my weaknesses that His power may rest on me. In other words, being Spirit-filled and enabled may mean that I am not even aware of His power. Only others will see Him because He is my focus.

PRAY: Jesus, faith is conviction about what I cannot see, not a vision or focus on what I want or how I am performing. It is a deep desire for Your will to be done, along with the understanding of my great need for grace. Apart from You, this glove is totally useless.

 

Life is not a straight line…

Today will be difficult. We say goodbye to a friend who died in her sleep. No warning, too young, leaving husband and family in numbing shock as well as all who knew her. Even after two weeks, most of us have not realized the reality of what happened.

We knew her well. Her oldest lived with us while in university. The other daughter’s hubby handles financial matters for us. Their son has been on our prayer list for years. My husband and hers have breakfast together every few weeks.

To add to the pain of this loss, we just experienced the most wonderful family reunion that I cannot describe without awe for God. He graced us with His presence and even the many who are not believers still speak of the event with superlatives, not fully understanding what made it special but realizing it was a deep blessing.

And now we go to another extreme. I realize the Lord is in this too, but the feelings are not the same. Today’s reading reminds me that no height of spiritual blessing can absolve me from obedience and watchfulness. While I would like to dwell on the joy of the reunion, He wants me to share the sorrow of the bereaved. My stomach even churns with the swing from joy to overwhelming sorrow, from enjoying those deeply blessed to comforting those deeply grieving.

Yet the reading reminds me that Jesus is here in both extremes. He never stops wanting me to obey Him and never stops supplying what I need to do it:

… walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; (Colossians 1:10)

For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (Colossians 1:29)

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but 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 work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13)

It is folly to think that the heights of blessing will keep the enemy from trying to topple me from that mountain top. Usually his attacks are unexpected and differ from the last time he went at me. This past few days, the distraction has been physical as well as emotional. Praying this morning helped a great deal. Also my mom’s words, “We must need it or we wouldn’t be getting it” often give motivation to simply trust God. If He wants whatever is happening, I need to accept it. If He doesn’t want it, that attack stops as He goes to bat for me.

In other words, I can fight, but it is a fight of faith not of effort, for my God fights for me, and therefore I can be at peace. The externals may not change, but again, it is the peace of God who makes this change inside of me.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6–7)

Understanding this peace may not happen, but experiencing it is a reality.

PRAY: Lord, even my devotions this morning were a turmoil and interrupted several times, but You are here with me and Your presence makes such a difference. Fill me with Your Spirit that I might glorify You today and not be absorbed today with the ups and downs of this past week. Thank You!

Stay plugged into God’s Power

 

My hubby and I often talk about the difficulty of understanding what motivates people, even ourselves. We cannot read minds and realize that our own minds can be driven by the subconscious part so that we do things and wonder why we did them. Living by the power of the Holy Spirit can be difficult to understand too, yet the Bible uses the word EMPOWER to clarify His activity and show us a little about what the Spirit does.

My Bible dictionary says empower means to implement or cause to function; to carry into effect. It is the empowering to enable us to do what we are supposed to do. A similar word is defined as, “to do what something is used for; perform as expected when operating.” An English dictionary says it is about putting something into effect. All this tells me that the function of the Holy Spirit is to enable me to live like God created me to live. It is about motivation but also about the ability to bypass human motivations and do what God wants. As the Bible says, the Spirit and the flesh are in conflict however the Spirit can win that ‘war’ empowering me to obey God from the heart.

For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:5–6)

One of the first descriptions refers to spiritual gifts. 1 Corinthians 12 says there are a variety of them but all are given and empowered by the same Spirit, even if those gifts are seemingly opposites, such as leading/serving.

This empowering is illustrated in the life of the apostles. Peter had an apostolic ministry to the Jews while Paul served the Gentiles, both empowered by the same Spirit but doing different work. (Galatians 2:8)

Further, this is not about rules, or special programs, or any human inventions. It does not happen because of God’s laws but depends on faith and love from God and working together. (Galatians 3:5 and 5:6) We cannot decide what the Spirit should be telling us because He “works all things according to the counsel of his will.” (Ephesians 1:11)

The reality is that once I was under the empowering influence of Satan. God’s Word is clear that this evil entity can govern those who do not believe. However, the power of the Holy Spirit overcame that influence and brought me to new life in Christ. This was His doing, not mine:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:1–9)

Even though that “lawlessness is already at work” the Holy Spirit still “restrains it” (2 Thessalonians 2:7) so we can depend on Him because He is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.” (Ephesians 3:20) For that reason, my obedience to the Spirit of God has great significance.

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. God tells me to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” because it is His Spirit who “works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13) This passage says that working means to put something into effect entirely or thoroughly! For that reason, I must agree with Paul who said, “For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” (Colossians 1:29) and also “thank God constantly for this, that when Christians received the word of God . . . they accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in them.” (1 Thessalonians 2:13) Another application is that I fervently continue to confess my sins and pray for others because God says, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16) using the same word as the verse that speak of the function power of the Holy Spirit to implement the will of God. Wow!