Working Out!

Work! Work! Work!

We are a work-oriented society. Working at getting ahead. Working for a living, working at physical fitness, working on our relationships, working on projects. Working at pleasure. Working towards retirement. We even work to be seen spiritual. Working for Jesus. Working and worrying how we can please God!  And some are even working at staying saved!  Been there, done that!  I grew up on a ’busy belief’ based on Phi 2:12 : “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.    My childhood mentors failed to teach me the complete concept/context of that chapter.

The Message version of Phil.2 gives timely work ethics for the physical/spiritual life of a christian: 

Phi 2:1 If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care–

Phi 2:2 then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends.

Phi 2:3 Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead.

Phi 2:4 Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

Phi 2:5 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself.

Phi 2:6 He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what.

Phi 2:7 Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!

Phi 2:8 Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death–and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.

Phi 2:9 Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever,

Phi 2:10 so that all created beings in heaven and on earth–even those long ago dead and buried–will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ,

Phi 2:11 and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.

Phi 2:12 What I’m getting at, friends, is that you should simply keep on doing what you’ve done from the beginning . . . living in responsive obedience, keeping it up. Better yet, redouble your efforts. Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God.

Phi 2:13 That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.

Phi 2:14 Do everything readily and cheerfully–no bickering, no second-guessing allowed!

Phi 2:15 Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Footnote:  Did you glean any work/belief ethics in this reading? Would living like this be a great way to win friends and influence the people we work and play with?

I felt personally challenged in these areas.