This website, Pressing On Together, is based on the goal all Christians have: To grow in our Christian life, and become more like Jesus Christ. (See Welcome.) God guarantees He will make us in the image of His Son (Romans 8:29). He is working in us to make that happen. At the same time I, and you, have the responsibility to strive for holiness and resist sin.
Here is what I am saying to myself. You might want to listen in.
I can do it
I’ve been given everything I need to live a life pleasing to God, to walk in a manner worthy of Him.
His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. (2 Peter 1:3)
in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge…so that you are not lacking in any gift, (1 Corinthians 1:5,7)
in Him you have been made complete (Colossians 2:10)
It is not I, but God
Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God. (2 Corinthians 3:5)
I might do it
I am able to live as He wants me, but I have a choice.
Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)
“Might walk” is an aorist subjunctive, which is an assertion about which there is some doubt, uncertainty, or indefiniteness.
I can do it, but will I?
But will I?
The truth, of course, is that sometimes I walk in newness of life and sometimes I don’t. Worse, sometimes I don’t even want to. Alas.
Thank God, He is working in me to want to. And to actually do what He wants.
for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13)
My responsibility
So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. (Philippians 2:12)
You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. (Hebrews 12:4)
These are challenging verses!
Am I working so hard to live out the fact that I am God’s child, saved by Him, that I tremble?
Do I resist sin to such as extent that I shed blood?
Do I even close the refrigerator door?
The glorious good news
I am so far from what I want to be. I want so much to hear my Lord say “Well done.” I want to please God.
Unfortunately, these important “wants” do not necessarily result in action.
But the glorious good news, the fact that gives me hope, is that it is GOD who is at work in me. He is making me, more and more, want to do everything His way, and then actually to carry out His will.
It comes down, as everything does, to GOD.
Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27)
