Our Father Works Out Our Salvation

Therefore, my dear ones, as you have always obeyed [my suggestions], so now, not only [with the enthusiasm you would show] in my presence but much more because I am absent, work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ).[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight. Philippians 2:12-13

I have a friend who told me that her pastor ended every sermon with Philippians 2:12. So I asked her if he ever went on to verse 13. She had no idea about verse 13. So for year after year the messages that she would hear ended with work out your own salvation. Year after year the message left all of the burden on the people and not on the Lord. The pastor never gave the Truth that would set the listeners free. When the Holy Spirit used me to share the Truth with her the freedom that He gave her was visible and she began to be set free from all of the fear of messing up. The Truth always sets us free, always! 

Sanctify them [purify, consecrate, separate them for Yourself, make them holy] by the Truth; Your Word is Truth. John 17:17

And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you through and through [separate you from profane things, make you pure and wholly consecrated to God]; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved sound and complete [and found] blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah). Faithful is He Who is calling you [to Himself] and utterly trustworthy, and He will also do it [fulfill His call by hallowing and keeping you]. 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

The glorious Truth for us is that our Father sanctifies us through and through. Our Father works out our salvation for us. Now look at what the Holy Spirit tells us in 1 Thessalonians, that He not only causes our spirits to be pure and blameless, He causes our bodies to be as well. Our Father is faithful to do it and He is totally trustworthy. There is now absolutely no fear for us. We have won because our Father doesn’t fail. 

So when you hear that we have to work out our own salvation, rejoice, we don’t do it through our strength, our Father does it through His.