the Fourth Week after Easter
free while helping to build churches and support pastors in Uganda.
Click here to learn more!
Daily Devotionals
John Gossner's Treasury
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain. Philippians 2:12-16.
Can it be a matter of indifference to teacher, father, or mother, whether their efforts in regard to those who are the objects of their labors, are successful or not? What joy is it not to the gardener when his plants grow, and his trees bear fruit! What joy to the farmer, when his fields, which he has plowed and sown in sweat and labor, give a rich crop! We rejoice, nevertheless, with trembling. One warns those who are the objects of one’s labor, as Paul did the Philippians. Beware of yourselves, tremble because of your weakness and your inclination to security and drowsiness. Do not let this beneficial fear (for servile fear be far from you), this "trembling" called forth by grace, take away your courage, but let it rather incite you to trust all the more firmly in the Lord, who can and will work in you both to will and to do, so that you really become "lights" in the dark world, and, by your pious and blameless conversation, differ from those who are "perverse" as the sun differs from the night. Wherever you stand, in your house, in your family, in the environment and circle in which you live, you are to stand as lights on the candlestick, you are to let your light so shine that it catches the eyes of dark and blind unbelief, so that men ask. Where does this light come from? Then you point to Him who is your light and who "lighteth every man that cometh into the world. " Hold forth the word of life; then you shall live and shine. Where there is life in the heart, there is light, it breaks forth and shines. But where only the dead word lies in the head and hangs upon the lips there is no light of life, no warmth of life, only death and darkness; there is no edification, no growth, no working out of one’s salvation. Such Christians had better, with "fear and trembling," begin to seek and to work out their own salvation.
I want a true regard,
A single steady aim,
Unmoved by threatening or reward.
To Thee and Thy great name:
A zealous, just concern
For Thine immortal praise;
A pure desire that all may learn
And glorify Thy grace.
