Posts Tagged: personal determination
“God at Work in Me”
My personal determination is never enough to transform me. Thankfully, my life is not primarily about my personal determination.
Here is my journal entry for this morning.
Thursday, July 13, 2017
I am determined today to live for God, because God died for me. (He also rose from the dead, but I’m afraid that news has not yet been leaked to the press.) Having a determined heart and mind and body is important early in the morning. However, will I have a determined mind later in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, during the night while I’m asleep?
To live out determination faithfully has always been my struggle. Perhaps it is everyone’s struggle since the fall of humankind, but that’s cold comfort. Fickle determination is simply being fickle.
So, what can I do? I can pray!
God, my determination doesn’t amount to much. Please grant me your determination.
After the preceding confession and prayer, I was reminded of a verse that a student and I had looked at two nights ago, when I subbed for another instructor: Philippians 2:13. I turned to my Bible software. The verse was still up on the current tab of that software.
“So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12-13, New American Standard Bible, 1995.)
If I am to do God’s will, I must first know that God is working in me to will and to do God’s will. I keep willfully (!!) forgetting that. I need to remember.
In the Greek text of Philippians 2:13, the verb that speaks of God “working” is in the present tense. The present tense in biblical Greek usually suggests some sort of continual, ongoing action.
God is continually working in me. God is continually working in me to desire to do God’s will, and to actually do it. What a wonderful truth! If I act as if I believe that (and it is an act for me most of the time), I would become much more relaxed. I would, at the same time, become much more energized.
My life is not primarily about me doing things for God. Rather, my life is primarily about God doing things in and through me.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
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