Over the past few days we’ve been talking about how we need to work out our own salvation. We are made right with God the moment we give our lives to Christ, and there’s nothing we need to do to add to that fact. We are instantaneously delivered from things like sickness and poverty, but we need to renew our minds and believe in order to experience those promises.
But it can’t come from our own strength, as today’s verse says. The truth is that God is “at work” in you!
How is God at work in you? Well, today’s verse brings out one way.
He gives you the desire and ability to ful ll His purpose and do what pleases Him. Isn’t that great news?
People ask me how to get a passion for God. It’s not by having some- one pray for you or lay hands on you. When you focus on Jesus, when you get into the Word, you become
energized. Desire is cultivated.
The more you study God’s Word, the more you get a desire for His Word. And the more you passionately serve
God and tell others about Him, the more you become energized to reach out to others even more!
At first it might feel difficult, but as you discipline yourself to keep doing it, something begins to happen. God’s power goes to work! Keep going and you’ll start to love doing
things God’s way, and His power is in you to do it.
Not in your strength
[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 2:13 (AMPC)