Wednesday, June 12, 2024
“Therefore, my
beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence but much
more now in my absence, work on your own salvation with fear and trembling, for
it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his
good pleasure.” (Philippians
2: 12 -13, New Revised Standard Version)
Last August, when our basement was
flooded and had to be gutted to fix the problems that were caused, our
communications hub was affected by the outcome. As we plugged things back in,
everything worked but our cordless phones. So, I phoned our provider. A nice
young woman answered. She asked for our password. I didn’t have a clue. Sorry,
but she couldn’t help unless I gave our password. I didn't even know I had a password. She had my phone number, street address. Didn’t matter; no password, no help. I gave
her the name of my firstborn, my mother’s maiden name, all the names of our
dogs we ever had (slightly exaggerating). Still, no password, no service.
Then she suggested that I give her the serial number off the modem. I
told her that even if I could see the numbers in the dark, I wouldn’t be able
to read them as they were too small. She suggested I use a magnifying glass. That’s
when I asked for her supervisor and got the same runaround. He finally condescended
to look at our service. He told me that everything looked just fine on their
end and we needed to basically work out the problem for ourselves and gave
us a couple of suggestions that might help. As my mother might say, it was
enough to make a preacher swear. But with the help of a stranger, I actually
did get the phones working again. I am
sure that there is red flag on our account that warns their customer service people
of a rude, crotchety old man. Tough!
Phones went out again this week.
I was readying for battle when Susan took over. She was sweetness and light and
faced none of the issues I had. Again, they tried to fix it from their end but couldn’t.
We needed a modem upgrade. They could mail us a new one or we could go the
store and pick it up ourselves. We had to go down into the basement and figure
out all the many cords which needed to be unplugged, go to their store, go
through their rigmarole for the exchange of modems and then go back home and try
to remember where all the cords should go. We were given a help sheet, just in
case. I don’t know what it would actually take to get a service call. It always
seemed that we had to work out the fix for the problem ourselves for the
most part. Phones seem to be working. Good news is that we now have a password.
Yippee!
It seemed that the cable company
wanted us to work it our on our own. As long as everything was fine on their
end, we needed to work out the solutions or go the extra mile and make the
effort to solve our issues.
Paul tells his readers to work
out their salvation with fear and trembling. God has freely set things
right between him and us through Jesus Christ. We have salvation by grace. Everything
is just fine on God’s end. Now, it is up to us to figure out what to do with this
marvelous gift of salvation. We have all the necessary parts. We have the instructions
i.e. the Bible. We have the help of fellow believers. God has gifted us with talents,
skills and abilities and hopefully, the intelligence to figure out how to make this
salvation system work.
Although Paul affirms that salvation
is a gift and we can’t work to earn it, he is certainly not opposed to good
works. In fact, he insists upon it. Good works are the necessary response to
the salvation we have been given. Neither God nor Jesus can do good works for
us – we must work these things out for ourselves. It is not enough to know the
password – Jesus Christ – one has to work out the responsibility of one’s faith
in order for it to be in good working order. (Maybe, Jesus is more like the modem,
in some ways.)
“Remember, there is only one
foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. Take particular care in picking
out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If
you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will
be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. If your work passes
inspection, fine; if it doesn’t, your part of the building will be torn out and
started over. But you won’t be torn out; you’ll survive—but just barely.”
(1 Corinthians 3: 11 -15, The Message)
My mother also had another saying,
God helps those who help themselves. It may be exasperating if all we do is
wait for God to “fix” all our problems when we ourselves need to work with God
and do our part in living up to his gracious Love and Mercy. We are God’s partners
throughout his plan for salvation. “And I am certain that God, who began the
good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on
the day when Christ Jesus returns.” (Philippians 1:6)
Dale
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