work out your own salvation!?!?!?!?

Am I the only person on earth that has a problem with this statement? Or am I the only person on the planet that is not weirded out by working out my own salvation? I mean I am Lutheran and there is nothing I can do, to the point that most of us Lutherans do nothing because it is already taken care of. And while that is a topic for another post, the point has to be made that Ephesians 2:8-10 says “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” We are saved by grace and can not earn our way to heaven, but we were created to do His works. So we need to get off our butts and do something, not for what it will get us, but because of what we have already been given!

But working out our own salvation?!?!?!? Really? Here again as my Roman Catholic friend will point out we stopped reading too soon. Ephesians 2:8-9 is his beef, because if you leave off 10 you don’t get that we are created for good works. And if you stop at work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, you miss the best part – “for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” God is working in you! He is enabling you to will and to work and do His good pleasure.  God is working in and through you to make His mission happen in this place at this time.  He is helping you work out that salvation in fear and trembling. Fear and trembling because of what could happen, or the life we would have to live on our own…

And Paul goes on as usual to hash this out a little more for us.  We are to “do all things with out murmuring and arguing, so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world.” If we help others and give of ourselves freely and do what God has prepared for us to do without grumbling the world will see God through our lives and will be drawn to Him.  We will shine like stars in the darkness of what is the world we live in. We need to be beacons of hope because this world needs to see God for who He is. Their creator who loves them enough to give up His only Son so that we could all be in a relationship with Him.

So all God to work in and through your life, making you to shine like a star and give light and hope to this world trapped in darkness. Allow God to fill you with His Holy Spirit and lead you in working out your salvation so that other see Him through you and drawn to Him.