Promised Prompting -- Acts 18:24 - 19:10, Philippians 2:12-13

Blessings and peace to those who the Holy Spirit has guided here,

My devotion to you this morning is from Philippians 2:12-13 (AMPLIFIED)

¹²Therefore, my dear ones, as you have always obeyed [my suggestions], so now, not only [with the enthusiasm you would show] in my presence but much more because I am absent, work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ).
¹³[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.

Perhaps the most relaxing off all of God's promises is that He is at work in us. He does not tell us to conform to the image of Jesus and then leave us alone to do it. He does not send us out on a mission and then cross his fingers to hope for our success. He does not urge us to live Godly lives and then blow up when we fail. No! Every step of the way He is there. And, as these verses indicate, He is not just working on our behavior from the outside. He is transforming us from within.

That's what it means for God to work in us to will and to act according to His good purposes. His values shape our wills, our inner drives, our ambitions and dreams. And then His Holy Spirit helps us with the always difficult follow-through, acting on those impulses that He has placed within us. Far from being handed a religion that tells us to shape up, we are gifted a Savior who gets inside to shape us. The promise of our transformation is that God is busy gutting our earthly temples and lovingly renovating them from within. He is a master Craftsman at work.

The comforting part of this promise is that when we have deep internal desires to do something entirely consistent with the stated plans and purposes of God, those desires are almost certainly God-given. And when we are driven to act on these desires with a strategy and a worthwhile agenda, we are almost certainly God-driven. The fact that He is at work in us both to will (desires) and to work (behavior) for His good purposes is a tremendously relaxing fact. Once our prayers have determined that we're motivated by the Holy Spirit and not by the flesh, we can trust that our work is not just our agenda, but His as well.

That means, of course, that He will see it through. The sovereign God who sees the future doesn't abandon projects midway through completion. If He started His work in you, He is committed to see it through. Rest in that truth, and trust what He is doing in your heart. There is a holy agenda shaping/transforming your life.