Php
2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye 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.
Php
2:13 FOR IT IS GOD WHICH WORKETH IN YOU BOTH TO WILL AND TO DO OF HIS
GOOD PLEASURE.
Work out
our own salvation-God works in us.
Working
out our own salvation is realizing and allowing God to work in us. If God is
working in us, we are NOT working ourselves beyond the work of allowing God
access to our lives. We have the ability to open or shut the door to God and
this door is a constant in our lives. Deciding who is in control of us is a
reality that people do not want to think about too much. As soon as a person
makes the declaration that they are in charge of their own life they slam shut
the door to God, keeping Him out. What they do NOT realize is a door shut to
God automatically means a door open to Satan. To believe there is such a
neutral existence as self being in complete control is ludicrous but it is
something more and more people choose to believe. Our lives are constantly
influenced on a spiritual, unseen level. Some of the most spiritually hardened,
self-promoting, stubborn minded atheists have given up their atheistic stand
when confronted with the sheer fact of the absurdity of believing a big bang
brought a human being into existence in all its extreme complexity. Some of the
most complex machinery that exists could never have thrown itself together, yet
for some baffling reason people believe we were somehow put together over
millions of years - originating from primordial ooze. The absurdity is
undeniable and yet dare I say, millions of people belief this ooze origin over
created origin.
If you've
ever done something in your life you regret- that regret alone reveals the lack
of control you really have over your own life. We're not stupid people, for the
most part. We realize as we are involved in the regretted act what we are
doing. Aside from pure emotional temporary insanity, we are fully conscious of
our wrong doing as it is occurring. As we shove aside regret and embrace our
actions, the regret doesn't disappear into nothingness, it gets buried- layer
by layer until we choose to call the wrong - right. We make excuses and force
ourselves to believe those excuses, we take a stand for our actions and hold
tight to them. How many people have done
this only to ultimately come face to face with their guilt? There would be no
guilt whatsoever if the things you've done were not regretted, and if
regretted- known to be a chosen wrong course of action, and if a known chosen
action then the decision to hurt our own selves by taking on self-destructive
regrettable behavior is NOT given to comprehension. Yet we do it ALL the time!
Big things, little things, a million regrets- living a lie of having no
regrets…this is what we do without reason.
The reason
is… our lives are being influenced constantly on a spiritual level.
Is our
door open to God or to Satan?
Are we
choosing to let God work in us, or Satan?
To work
out our own salvation is to choose God- constantly. It is recognizing having to
make that choice all the time. It is looking to God for answers, not to
ourselves. To choose God is to ask HIM for the strength to LIVE for HIM, it is
asking CHRIST to live in us, it is asking HIM to WORK IN US. Choosing God is
the giving up of a SELF-CENTER- SELFISH existence. Choosing God is giving up the part of us that
lives solely concerned with ourselves - whether it is pride in ourselves, hate
in ourselves, love in ourselves, yes…. Love in ourselves. We've taken the whole love yourself to a
perverted level where it means choosing to focus on our own feelings and
desiring a life focused on ourselves feeling good in one way or another.
We marvel
that some people can choose others over themselves, and God alone knows where
that comes from- a God fearing way or a self-centered way.
We need to
choose GOD over SELF. When our feelings are hurt we need to ask ourselves if
GOD'S feelings were hurt. When others hurt us- it truly is because they are
going through their own damaged experience that causes them to be hurtful and
hateful. Or maybe it's a damaged brain that prevents them from even realizing
they are being hurtful and hateful and causing us emotional pain. If God's
feelings are hurt by their actions His reaction would be much as Jesus' were
when He ministered upon earth in the flesh. Sadness for the pain inflictor not
Himself- He was strong in the Father's love. We take our hurt and make it
personal, Jesus and the Father take their hurt and make it sorrowful and even
angry sorrow for those causing it because they refuse a life of love preferring
their hateful, painful temporary existence over life eternal.
When we
are hurt emotionally, when that feeling of emotional turmoil rolls through us
and rises up to cloud all our thoughts so they consume us with the hurt, by the
grace of God we need to pray for the one hurting us. We need to seek God and
pray for that person deeply, not superficially. We need to take the awful
feeling we are experiencing and use it to strengthen our relationship with God,
not alienate us from Him.
God before
all, even self.
If we are
loving God with all our heart and soul as we are commanded to, we are NOT
nurturing self-love. Let's find our
worth IN GOD and no other. If we find our worth in ourselves we will fail
ourselves, it is inevitable. If we find our worth in any other human being
chances are good they'll fall short in supplying all we need for our worth. GOD
will never fail us, God cannot fail us. God's promise is for the FUTURE life
without all the issues and angst, all the failures, and faults, all the horrors
and nightmares. What we endure now is but for a moment in the light of
eternity. Please, Lord, let us be all about YOU and not at all about OURSELVES.
All
through Jesus Christ our LORD and SAVIOR now and forever!!!!!!!
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