“Salvation is not only positional but also experiential and should be realized in the daily life of the believer. Working it out means that we grow up into our new identity as children of God who will inherit eternal life in the kingdom of God and set our sights on looking and living more like this every day.”- Randy Frazee
“Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure. . . . Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the words of life.”- Philippians 2:12-15 (NIV)
In Principle #8: Stop Being a Grump of The Joy Challenge, Randy Frazee observes that we get our word energy from the Greek word for work. Yet, God never leaves us to work out our salvation on our own. Instead, Randy stresses, God works in us to help work it out of us.
Hence, to undergo this transformation, God empowers and fuels us on the inside. As a result, we then act it out in our day-to-day lives with other people.
Consequently, God’s divine momentum enables us not to be:
1. Grumpy people. The Greek word for grumbling, gagguso, refers to words spoken behind a person’s back. Thus, grumbling represents a form of gossip or betrayal. So, a friend or co-worker’s betrayal hurts more than most other acts.
Finally, it’s very easy to get caught up in betrayal, since it devastates the recipient when they find out. And even the culprit gets bitten in the end.
2. Argumentative. We obtained our English word dialogue from the Greek word dialogisinos, which the apostle Paul uses in the above passage. However, Paul isn’t talking about benign conversation here. Thus, Paul challenges our approach. We must not turn every conversation into an argument, leaving behind a string of scarred people.
Today’s question: How do you see salvation as positional as well as experiential? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “This constellation of gladness”