Faith

Philippians 2

¹²Therefore, my beloved,^(AA) as you have always^(AB) obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³for^(AC) it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for^(AD) his good pleasure.

I know...again. But its really amazing what God does in His time. I feel like God's been dealing with me on this particular passage. A few days ago I was reading another chapter in C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity" titled "Faith" and guess which verse came up...yep. It's too good for me to paraphrase so I'm going to temporarily ignore copyright infringment laws and put the whole passage up here hoping that my trespass will be forgiven since it was in the interests Bible study. In the chapter he's talking about the conflicting extreme views held by different Christian groups regarding salvation. On the one hand are those who say "Good actions are all that matter" and on the other hand are those who say, "if you have faith, it doesn't matter what you do." The passage picks up in the middle of this debate:

 

"The Bible really seems to clinch the matter when it puts the two things together into one amazing sentence. The first half is, 'Work out your salvation with fear and trembling'--which looks as if everything depended on us and our good actions: but the second half goes on, 'For it is God who worketh in you'--which looks as if God did everything and we nothing. I am afraid that is the sort of thing we come up against in Christianity. I am puzzled, but I am not surprised. You see, we are now trying to understand, and to seperate into water-tight compartments, what exactly God does and what man does when God and man are working together. And, of course, we begin by thinking it is like two men working together, so that you could say, 'He did this bit and I did that.' But this way of thinking breaks down. God is not like that. He is inside you as well as outside: even if we could understand who did what, I do not think human language could properly express it. In the attemp to express it different Churches say different things. But you will find that even those who insist, most strongly on the importance of good actions tell you you need Faith; and even those who insist most strongly on Faith tell you to do good actions. At any rate that is as far as I can go."

C.S. Lewis may not have been a trained theologian, but he had a talent for expressing complicated thoughts and theories in ways that are simple for the common man to understand. Like Dr. Zacharias, He interprets this verse to express a duality in Christianity where God is sovereign but man has a responsibility to act.
So with all the theology settled, what application does this have for us? First, it is a reminder that religion is not enough. To simply profess faith in Christ or, on the other hand, to just be a good person does not please God. He desires His children to cultivate a relationship with Him. When we develop a relationship with Christ - when we learn to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength - we will seek to please Him with our actions, and both parts - the faith and the works - will fall into place. Second, and refreshingly, while we work hard to please Him in all we do, the fate of the world does not rest on our shoulders. We give our best to God, and leave all our insufficiencies to the One who is all sufficient; our imperfections to the One who is Perfection; our failures to the One who never fails.
What a verse. What a thought. What a Savior.