Day 9 Are You Growing?

Are You Growing?

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 pleasure’   Philippians 2:12,13

Does the injunction ‘to work out your salvation with fear and trembling’ mean it’s all up to us? God sits back and says “I’ve done My part. Now it’s your turn.”

No, it doesn’t, as the very next verse says. Salvation is God’s work from start to finish, ‘for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good pleasure.’

The phrase ‘your own salvation’ isn’t contrasting their work from God’s work in salvation. The phrase is contrasting Paul’s responsibility for their spiritual welfare which he would have taken had he been with them, to their need to take on that responsibility completely because of his imprisonment.

Ultimately, our spiritual state is our responsibility. We can’t blame our church leaders. We have access to the very throne room of God. We have the Bible and a myriad of Bible resources within easy reach.

God will work with us every step of the way. He puts the desire to grow spiritually in our hearts and then opens the way for it to happen.

Are you growing in your spiritual life? Are the basic spiritual disciplines of Bible reading, prayer and fellowship happening in your life? Do you note down what you’re learning in your Christian life?

What do you feed your mind on? Do you take accountability for your actions? Is your goal, as Paul states just a few verses after the ones above, ‘that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the Universe as you hold out the word of life’ (Philippians 2:15)

Take responsibility for your spiritual growth. It’s not all up to you but it’s sure not going to happen without you either.

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