Food for Thought
In Philippians chapter two verses twelve and thirteen (NLT) we find these words that Paul is sending to the believers at Philippi:
Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
Paul in this letter is encouraging teamwork. He is confident that God is continuously at work in the heart of the believer. I’m sure that by this time given his personal experience in leading people to Christ and planting churches, he has witnessed many cases of God working amazing stuff in individual lives and churches. So he says to these folks: God is already at work in your life, join him, work hard as a team, get with the plan! He is willing and able to give the necessary power to do what pleases him.
I find it interesting that Paul points out that it is God’s work in our hearts that gives us the desire and power to do what pleases him. One might think that given what the Lord has done for me I would naturally have the desire to do what pleases him. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Our worldly desires constantly compete with our spiritual desires sometimes resulting in a lack of desire to expend our time and energy in pleasing him. But I believe that if we are open to him, and his work in our lives, he will give us a boost of desire for the things of God.
It is an interesting exercise to pause for a few moments first thing in the morning and think about what my desires are for the day. And then having thought about that for a while evaluate what percentage of those desires reflect a desire to do what pleases God verses what desires are about pleasing myself.
Sometimes in a moment of discouragement we might wonder why God is not at work in my church. I think it could be argued that there is a relationship between the degree that God is working in a church and the degree to which the people of that church are welcoming the work of God in their personal hearts and lives.
Paul’s words suggest that God is always at work in our lives regardless of our response, and I believe that to be true. I also believe that God is also always at work in our church. But the degree to which results achieved in our lives and in the life of our church are influenced by the degree we welcome, embrace and team up with him .
Pastor Dave