“Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” Philippians 2:12-13 NIV
Paul is writing to the Philippians and encouraging them to not only live in alignment with God’s will while he is there, but also when Paul leaves and is not there to keep encouraging them. I want to address the part of this verse that states that they were ‘to work out their salvation with fear and trembling’.
In regards to the “to work out” part of the verse, I believe what Paul is saying is that they should be active in their obedience to God and His will. Active in trying to make sure that they are listening to God and trying to discern His will for each one of them. No one can work out your salvation for you because it is yours and yours alone. Each one of us has to decide how we are going to think about things, react to things and choose to live life.
When we choose to follow God, we are choosing to listen to Him always and not only in moments that we find convenient. Working out our salvation, to me, means listening to God in difficult times when our flesh is screaming that it wants to get revenge or to not forgive and we know that at the same time God is whispering to us to be kind, merciful and forgive. Following God’s lead and being obedient is hard but possible because we have God on our side.
As for the “with fear and trembling”, Paul was not encouraging them to be in a constant state of fear. I believe that he was telling them to have a reverential fear of God. Not a fear of Him hurting them but a fear of them disappointing Him by not being obedient. People sometimes become complacent in their walk with God and start not obeying God’s directions fully. They believe that they have done so much good for so long that just this time they can not do everything that God wants them to do. Unfortunately that “one” time becomes “many” times and the next thing they know they are not following God’s will very much at all in their lives.
We are each responsible to figure out how we want to listen to God and how we want to follow God. No one else can figure this out for us. Are you actively “working out your salvation” or have you become complacent?