Help for Our Spiritual Journey
“ for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his great pleasure.” Philippians 2:13
We are thankful that we have a relationship with God because of the death of Jesus on the cross for our sins. We must have the acceptance of Christ into our hearts for the forgiveness that only Christ can give us. There is this relationship at work between God and ourselves as the scripture above reveals. At the same time we have the Holy Spirit helping us for the salvation that God has and wants for us.
Without God in our life, we are merely here on earth to thrive. I remember seeing the word thrive on my mother’s death certificate. For the “cause of death” is merely stated “failure to thrive.” It is common in the geriatric population or elderly patients to have a steady decline in health. I looked up a description of failure to thrive in a medical article and it said it was “progressive functional decline that is multifactorial and may be caused by chronic concurrent diseases and functional impairment.” That definition is specific for the end stages of our long life’s journey. But what does it mean for us in our everyday lives to “thrive” without God?
Without God in our life we spend time building up resources, trying to maintain our health and generally seeking a life as one saying goes “to put food on the table, clothes on our back and a roof over our head.” We surely must always be thankful for the many blessings and sometimes bountiful resources that we are provided and can share with others beside our immediate family. But without God in our life there is no real joy or hope that there is life after we cease to thrive.
What is God’s good pleasure or purpose that He wants for each of us? We cannot do what is right and just on our own, even with the help of family, friends and others who provide some wisdom. We are to rely on the grace of God that inclines our hearts and minds to do what is good. God wants us to do what is good and pleasing to Him. We can do it if we believe He is at work in us to equip us, by the help of the Holy Spirit, to do His will. We seek in our prayer, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
So as we continue to thrive, let us do it with God in our hearts and continually at work in our life. Not merely on Sundays, Wednesday Bible Study, Fellowship gatherings, funerals and weddings, but all of the time we are given breath to do His great pleasure.
A few songs, remember you can tap “skip ads” after a few seconds; https://youtu.be/8nLXXephYRI