"God answers my prayers everywhere except on the golf-course."
Work out your salvation
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 2:12At first thought this is a difficult and strange verse. We have been taught that salvation is all of grace. God has saved us. Our salvation has been achieved by the death of Christ, on the cross for us. The price has been paid. There is nothing more for us to do.
So what then does it mean for us to work out our own salvation? Perhaps we have too narrow a view of salvation.
Perhaps we have too narrow a view of salvation. We tend to refer to the moment of our conversion and equate it with “salvation.” There is nothing wrong with this as long as we remember that there is more to our salvation than this initial conversion experience when we are justified, or put into a right relationship with God.
Paul sees salvation as a process – past, present and future. We have been saved, we are being saved, and we shall be saved. See for example:
Past tense: He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy (Titus 3:5).
Present tense: For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Corinthians. 1:18).
Future tense: Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God (Romans. 5:9).
Just as it can take a lifetime to perfect a sports skill, so it takes a lifetime to work out our salvation and apply it to every aspect of human experience. No athlete would ever claim to have perfect technique. There is always something more to learn and develop. Similarly we can never think that we have fully worked out our salvation.