Work Out your Own Salvation

By John Weaver

September 1, 2025

“… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12b).

This is a part of a verse that is often taken out of context. When I, my wife, and several other couples had come to the realization that we could NOT attain salvation by our works, it seemed like this scripture was encouraging us to do the opposite. One thing this did for us (and it still should) was to cause us to search the scriptures to see if these things were so.

The passage becomes a bit clearer with the following verse added:

“…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12b-13).

It is God who works in us, not our works that bring about a changed life. It is only when we allow God to work in us that there can be an outworking. It is God’s power in, and then God’s power flowing out. Then it can bless many.

This is a bit like Jesus taught in John, when He said:

“…out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (Jn 7:38).

Many of us have desired this. In reality, it seemed like after much effort, all we could get was a tiny trickle. So what was wrong? Well, let us again search the scriptures.

“In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (Jn 7:37-38).

Oh yes! For the rivers of water to flow out, there has to be an inflow. To start that inflow, we have to drink. Before we drink, we need to be thirsty. It is then that we can have those rivers of living water flowing. Again, it is God who works in us to will, and to do of His good pleasure.

I had a brother tell me yesterday that he is just a PVC pipe for God to use. Water from God comes in, then flows out from him to as many as he preaches to. Satan would like to cap off that pipe, but as the water keeps flowing, he has no chance.

There are many things that God wants to work in us, and then we allow those things to work out of us...

like holiness. God says, “…be ye Holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). How do we become holy?
or sanctification. What is that?
or regeneration. What is that?
or how do old things pass away and all things become new?

Glory to God, all of these things God desires to work in us, so that there can be an outflow and touch many lives.

Always, always give God the glory, because it is He who works in me to do His will. Thank You, Lord, for Your goodness to us.