All of us struggle with motivation from time to time. That’s why we allow God to work in us and give us the motivation we need to do and act how He wants us to act.
Paul has just told the believers in the city of Philippi to work out their salvation in Phil 2:12, now he says that they can do this by allowing God to work in them. “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13, NASB).[1]
The phrase beginning of this verse, “for it is God” supplies the basis for how we act out our salvation. God does it all, but he puts us to work too.
Pastor J. Vernon McGee writes, “So God works out that which He had worked in. If God has saved you, He has saved you by faith—plus nothing. God is not accepting any kind of good works for salvation. But after you are saved, God talks to you about your works. The salvation He worked in by faith is a salvation He will work out also.”[2] The swiss reformer John Calvin famously has said, “Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone.” James put it another way, “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works” (James 2:17–18).
God puts the will and the work in us. God is the one energizing us to do the work. “The Christian life is not a series of ups and downs. It is rather a process of ‘ins and outs.’ God works in, and we work out.” (Wiersbe, Be Joyful, p. 74).
[1] Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.
[2] J. Vernon McGee, Philippians and Colossians (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1991), 54.