1.4 Working from the Energy of God

[Ruth]

Yes! So often I've heard the idea that we don’t need to do anything now that we are in Christ, it should all be effortless… But scripture is pretty clear that we still need to struggle and choose.

[Karlena]

Wow, I had never thought of the significance of this passage in Greek before. Thanks, Sean! Great stuff! In my own personal life, I can only see from whence I came and where He has brought me to today. The amazing transformation that His energizing power has worked in me and continues to work in me. It is a joy to be alive–in Him!

[Nikolas]

These passages really speak to the mutual participation of us and God working together as we mature in our faith. While I am called and accountable to live for Christ, it is also God’s empowering Spirit and his immeasurable grace which are at work in me to live for him! Is it me working? Yes. Is it God at work? Yes! There’s a strong call in the Philippians 2 passage to live faithfully for Jesus, and the reminder in 1 Corithinas 15 that our striving to live faithfully is not found in mustering up our own strength and ‘pushing through’, but in relying and resting in the grace and goodness of God. This both energizes us and restores us. We are energized to live, knowing that it’s not based on ‘being good enough’ on our own strength, and we can also rest in the restorative power of Christ, knowing that God’s grace is at work in me.

[ECO]

Well said @Nikolas

I often think of the old quote, Christianity isn’t a “do” religion, it is is a “done” religion. We work together with the Spirit not to prove we are saved, but out of love for what God has done for us. Somebody put it like this, “Grace is the root, and works are the fruit.”

[Daniel]

I agree with Darla. In the same way I lived in sin and addiction for many years and it’s by the Grace and energia of God I becoming the man I am supposed to be through him!

[ECO]

@hope_dealer Thanks for this! God’s grace truly makes a difference in our lives.

Have you ever heard this quote: “There but for the grace of God go I.” This quote supposedly comes from a mid-sixteenth-century statement by John Bradford, “There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford”, in reference to a group of prisoners being led to execution.