Work Out Your Own Salvation

(Philippians 2:12-13)

What does it mean to work out your own salvation? There are a couple of aspects that are immediately obvious from these scriptures today and those that precede these ones.

First, we are told to work out our own salvation, which means we need to do it for ourselves. No one else can do it for us. We must find the path to salvation and follow it ourselves. And we need to work at it to walk the right path.

Secondly, there will be fear and trembling because we are dealing with God. We must learn to respect, honour and worship Him if we are to receive salvation from Him. We cannot save ourselves but must rely on The Lord and God to save us. But there are ways we can do this as I will cover in this post.

Seek the Truth

We note a number of other points in these scriptures today and one of the key requirements to work out your own salvation is to seek the truth.

12 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; 13 for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)

In the last part of these verses we see that God is at work in us according to His purposes and for His good pleasure. And it is a pleasure for God when His children live in accordance with His will.

So one of the first things we must do to work out our own salvation is to find the will of God and to do that we must seek the truth.

What is the will of God for each of His children? Well, the wonderful thing is that God has written down His will for anyone to read in the Bible. In fact the word “testament” is another word to describe “will.” We know when people make out a will it is usually referred to as making out their “last will and testament.”

The Bible is the last will and testament of the The Lord.

Similarly, while a person is alive they may make out any number of wills, changing them as their circumstances change. Each successive will or testament supersedes and replaces the previous one, and when they die it is only the most recent will that is legal and binding.

It is the same with the Lord. When Jesus came to the earth He taught man many things about the nature of God and the pathway to salvation. And when He died for us, the New Covenant or the New Testament became His last will and testament, which included all of the promises to mankind if they would follow Him.

Furthermore, the New Covenant supersedes and replaces the Old Covenant because it is a better will and testament, as the scripture tells us.

In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. (Hebrews 8:13)

So in seeking the truth we need to look at the last will and testament of the Lord, which is contained fully in the New Testament. This is where we will find the truth of the path to salvation. We don’t ignore the Old Covenant as there is great wisdom in it since that too contained the words of God. But the New Covenant is a much better way and if we are to come to God it is far better to seek Him through the covenant established by and in Jesus Christ for His is the truth that will make us free.

To find the truth we must come to Christ. Seek Him in prayer and study the words He has left for us to learn in His last will and testament. We need to be filled with the word seeking full understanding. We need to be immersed in the word so that it is there and available on the tip of our tongue to be used to guide us in our daily lives.

The words of the Lord truly are living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.

Obey the Truth

But it is not enough to just know the words, we must also obey what the words tell us and through them learn to obey the Lord.

For example, even atheists and those who oppose Christianity read the Bible from time to time to twist the scriptures and to try to use the scriptures against the people of the Lord. And it is no wonder because even the devil does the same.

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14)

And in the same way it is not enough to read the words and do nothing further. It is not enough to just believe. Consider the fact that even the demons believe but they will not be saved.

19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe–and shudder. 20 Do you want to be shown, you shallow man, that faith apart from works is barren? (James 2:19-20)

As the scripture here tells us, we must act on the words. And to act on the words of the Lord means we must follow His processes to come before the Father according to the pathway as He laid it out. We cannot come to the Father by any other path than the one that He established.

Unfortunately there are those who believe they can do it their own way. They believe they do not have to do certain things that the Lord required and taught His people to do.

For example, there are those who do not get baptised in water, and yet Jesus was baptised and instructed the disciples in one section of the Great Commission to go out and baptise all the new disciples they made. Some people believe you do not need to receive the Holy Spirit or to speak in tongues, saying that was only needed in the early church. Some believe they will be accepted because they give a lot of money to the church or build buildings and other great works. Some believe that the prayers of a priest on a persons death bed will suffice to receive salvation and entry into God’s kingdom.

All of these, and there are many other such beliefs, are not part of th processes established by Christ to receive salvation and enter into the kingdom of God. These things are the ways of man, not the ways of God, and the only way we are going to find salvation is to seek the path that God set up in Jesus Christ. There is no other path.

So the next logical step after find the truth is to obey the truth. Obey and do what the Lord taught us to do and so be saved.

The need for obedience was contained in the first section of the verses under study today. And we should note that this obedience is to come from the heart.

We must obey Christ ALL the time, not just when it suits us or when we are in the presence of other Christians.

Obedience is not about eye-service to look good. It is about change. Through obedience we are changing how we think, act and behave. We are seeking to do as the Lord commanded and to become like Him as we walk the pathway to salvation.

Trust in the Lord

And finally when we have learned the truth and are being obedient to the truth, we must also learn to trust in the Lord.

In all things the Lord wants what is good for us. He wants to bless His children, but we must trust Him at all times, even when things may seem hard or difficult we must trust and never waver in our faith and obedience to Him.

Consider the situation Abraham found himself in when the Lord tested him by telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on an altar.

Did Abraham reject God? Did he seek his own pathway? Did his faith in God waver?

No. In this situation and all others, Abraham trusted God knowing that even in the hard things God had a plan that was better than any Abraham could come up with. Abraham knew that God would have a way, even resurrecting Isaac if necessary. And of course we see in the recounting of these events that God did come to the rescue and provided a sheep just before Abraham sacrificed Isaac, stopping him from killing his son and heir.

Abraham remained faithful, trusting in the word of God in the good times when the Lord told him he would have a son, and also in the hard times such as the situation with Isaac.

That is the same level of trust we need to find as we walk with the Lord. We need to trust Him in everything because He is going to allow us to go through difficult circumstance for our strengthening and growth as Christians.

And in all situations He is never going to leave us alone. He will never fail us nor forsake us as the scripture tells us in Hebrews 13:5.

So in working out our own salvation, not that it is from us but from Christ, we must seek the truth, find the truth, obey the truth and trust in the Lord to carry us through to salvation.

You might also like:

Ask and it will be given, Seek and you will find, Knock and it will be opened
Trust Jesus In All Situations
Seek The Lord And Never Ever Give Up
Turned Around By The Truth
Ask And It Will Be Given You
Walking In The Light
Knowing Gods Will A Good Rule Of Thumb
Whoever Seeks To Gain His Life Will Lose It
Youre Not Listening
Seek And You Will Not Find
Walk In The Light
I Am The Door
Trust And Obey
A Question Of Trust
How To Find The Truth
No Shortcuts
Nothing But The Truth
They Did Not See
The Bible
What Is Holding You Back
Where Is The Truth