Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, because God does it all for you!

I ended last day's post by saying that we need help, and that it is available. The tile of today's post is a misquote from Philippians 2:12,13, but it highlights what could easily be seen as a contradiction. The exact quote is “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 apparent contradiction comes from wondering that if God works in both our desires “to will,” and the wherewithal “to do,” why would we need to be concerned at all, let alone be in fear and tremble because we might get it wrong? But it's not an all or nothing thing, as in He does it all and I do nothing. It's all about partnership with God. The good news is that it is not all up to me. The point is that when I do my part, then He makes up for what I am not (in my current stage) able to do for myself. However, He will not do His part in my recovery if I am not willing to do mine.

And I do mean recovery, it is not just about being good, thought I am not saying that is not important. In order to explain let me say that the word 'salvation' in this quotation is a very broad Biblical term. It has been described as having three aspects: deliverance from the penalty of our sin, the ongoing deliverance from the power of sin (often called sanctification) and finally the future deliverance from the very presence of sin (glorification) when we die or Jesus returns. In some circles the word salvation is used only for the first of these three aspects, but this is to fail to understand the breadth of the word, and also of what God wants to do in our lives.

Sadly many Christian never fully enter into the second aspect of salvation mentioned in this verse. In particular many do not even see the need to deal with things in their past that hinder them. Another reason I use the word recovery is because I think that what the secular word means contains much of what true sanctification is all about. But I want to use the word recovery in a deeper way than in the secular version, I want to say that sanctification rightly understood, is a Biblically based recovery. And as I said last day, this does involve doing the right things, making good choices (Biblical righteousness), but it also, as the meat of today's verse implies, it also involves very practical help from God in the process, and it involves healing. It is good news for me that God works in my desires, because many times I have been double minded about things. It is also good news that I am not left alone in my struggles and that there also is healing in the offing. Without His help we are more likely to give up, and without healing, the changes I make are less likely to stick even if I do experience breakthrough. Biblically based recovery (sanctification) is a lot more than just change of behaviour!

The three aspects of sanctification mentioned here are not available in secular recovery. For instance, many times we know perfectly well what we need to do, but the doing of it can be an insurmountable obstacle. Today's quotation promises that when we do our part, God will work firstly in our desires and secondly in the wherewithal, that is the strength, the wisdom etc., to do what needs to be done. It's called Grace. The third element is healing. We are told (Isaiah 61:1, Luke 4:18-21) that Jesus was sent to heal the broken hearted. Jesus is the one who heals. Biblical inner healing ministries are ripe with testimonies of people set free from their past by dramatic encounters with the living God. The movement I am most familiar with is the “Restoring the foundations ministry.” I have in and through training received significant healing of my own hart issues. The secular version of healing that “time heals all” is in fact a lie. In time we may learn to live with our pain, but it does not restore the emotional mental and/or psychological damage done in the happenstances of life. We need healing, I do!

But I need to say something about the fear and trembling mentioned in our main quotation. Many times we can make the change be healed and begin to walk in victory only to find in a moment of weakness that we have reverted to our habit, or to our old ways. God helps us in amazing ways, but we can then begin to take the credit for what He has done. The Scripture warns us that pride comes before the fall, and that he who thinks he stands should take care lest he fall (Proverbs 16:18, 1 Corinthians 10:12). So we need to work these things through in fear and trembling because it is far too easy to drift away, and as the writer to the Hebrews asks “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” (Hebrews 2:1-3). If we are not careful we can find ourselves flopping back and forth between over confidence and the feeling that we have to do it all ourselves. The Lord does not want us striving, but rather He wants us to find our rest, our joy, our hope, our peace and sufficiency in Him. As I keep saying, it's all about our ongoing relationship with Him!