One thing that has really touched me this semester, is the matter of reading the word and how important reading the word is to our Christian walk. Recently I was at a bible study with some saints in Arlington where we read a chapter out of 2 Timothy. In 2 Timothy, Paul was writing to Timothy telling him to continue in the faith even though the church was declining.
"And that from a babe you have known the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through the faith which is in Christ Jesus." 2 Tim 3:15
One thing we can see here is that the Word of God, or in this case "sacred writings," make us wise unto salvation. I've really just been impressed that one major thing that the Word of God does for us is that it brings us unto salvation.
And at the same time on the bible reading schedule I was reading Philippians.
Philippians 2:12 says
So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only but now much rather in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
But in this verse it talks about our salvation being something that we have to work out by ourselves.
Well Salvation has two aspects.
1) Judicial salvation from condemnation and the lake of fire.
-this is the first part of salvation, which is already taken care of the moment we believed and got baptized
2) Organic salvation, which is the day-by-day, moment-by-moment salvation we receive by taking in Christ as Life through exercising our Spirit and touching the Lord in the word.
- this is the salvation that Philippians 2:!2 is referring to.
This is kindof like the story of Noah.
1) He had the eternal salvation because God chose him to live and told him that he would flood the Earth
2) Noah had to work out his own salvation by building the ark, which took him a long time, but he had to do it little-by-little, day-by-day, so that he and his family would be saved.
The answer to how we work out our own salvation is found in 1 Peter 2:2
"As newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by it you may grow unto salvation."
The way for us to work out our own salvation is through the living and abiding word of God. (1 Pet 1:23) Like babies need milk to grow, we need to take in the word as milk to grow unto salvation.
Praise the Lord for the word! It has really been my salvation this semester.
