READ: PHILIPPIANS 2:12-13
To work out your own salvation does not mean that you earn your place with God by good religious works. We are saved by grace, not by our works. What it does mean is that, once saved, the rest of our life is spent growing in to the fullness of God, being transformed in the likeness of Christ. It’s a lifetime journey. Spiritual growth, like all growth, is a learned, long term process.
James Smith wrote that becoming like Jesus is akin to making a pickle. To make a pickle first you need a cucumber. Then you create the brine and the vinegar solution for soaking the cucumber. If you dip the cucumber into the solution and quickly pull the cucumber out, all you have is a baptized cucumber. In order for it to become a pickle, it needs to soak in the brine for six weeks or so. Slowly and imperceptibly, the solution works its way into the cucumber and it changes into a pickle. Working out your own salvation means daily soaking yourself in the things of God so that, over a lifetime, you grow more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ. There is nothing more important that you can do for your spiritual growth than to daily soak yourself in the word of God.
To work out your own salvation does not mean that you earn your place with God by good religious works. We are saved by grace, not by our works. What it does mean is that, once saved, the rest of our life is spent growing in to the fullness of God, being transformed in the likeness of Christ. It’s a lifetime journey. Spiritual growth, like all growth, is a learned, long term process.
James Smith wrote that becoming like Jesus is akin to making a pickle. To make a pickle first you need a cucumber. Then you create the brine and the vinegar solution for soaking the cucumber. If you dip the cucumber into the solution and quickly pull the cucumber out, all you have is a baptized cucumber. In order for it to become a pickle, it needs to soak in the brine for six weeks or so. Slowly and imperceptibly, the solution works its way into the cucumber and it changes into a pickle. Working out your own salvation means daily soaking yourself in the things of God so that, over a lifetime, you grow more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ. There is nothing more important that you can do for your spiritual growth than to daily soak yourself in the word of God.
– Dr. Tim Thompson