July 21

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 2:12-13

What a staggering weight of thought is excited by these words! Stay, my soul, and wonder that the Eternal God should stoop to work within thy narrow limits. Is it not a marvel indeed, that He, whom the heavens cannot contain, and in whose sight they are not clean, should trouble Himself to work on such material, so unpromising, and amidst circumstances so uncongenial?

How careful should we be to make Him welcome, and to throw no hindrance in His way! How eager to garner up all the least movements of His gracious operation, as the machinist conserves the force of his engine; and as the goldsmith, with miserly care, collects every flake of gold leaf! Surely we shall be sensible of the fear of holy reverence and the trembling of eager anxiety; as we “work out,” into daily act and life, all that God our Father is “working in.” — F. B. Meyer.