Living It Out

“…work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:12b-13
I was talking with one of my sons recently about his growing understanding of Resting, Sanctification, Sovereignty, and Philippians 1:6 & 2:12, 13.
It is a wonderful thing to have children who believe in Christ as their Savior and Lord! I see him struggle to achieve the balance of accepting and working, resting and doing, being sanctified and being sanctified. Each of these (and many more) has been done to us and is to be done by us in some mysterious way that is hard to explain.
I can sum it up in the title of today’s post- Living It Out. God has done all this for us (as true born again believers in Christ) and to us in eternity past. Now we are to daily live out the reality of what that is and means.
For example, I know that I am sanctified - (1 Cor. 1:2, Heb. 10:10) I (like you) started out sinful (Psalm 51:5) an enemy of God (James 4:4), a child of wrath (Eph 2:1-3). I have been set apart by God from eternity past to be one of His children. I was for ordained to be holy and blameless in His sight (Eph 1:4). That is a past completed act that has a present implication. It is a fact; it is something I “am.”
But I am also being sanctified daily! In the part of my sinful nature, or my flesh that remains I am being changed. My flesh cannot be changed because it is not redeemable, but my flesh can be killed, or put to death, through the Spirit (Romans 8:13). This change happens as I live the Scripture that I commit to memory (Rom 12:2), believe that what the Bible says about me is true and LIVE as though it is true. I already am holy because I am in Christ! So then I must carry this through to how I live. I must live holy. How does one live holy? (Psalm 119) By following what the Word of God says about how I am to live life.
Do you see how Scripture is to be the center of all of life and how it is to guide all of life?
This is but one small example of truth and the application of it. Learn who you are, and learn how to live who you are. You don’t have to try to be what God has decreed you are.