One of the things we have lost over the years is much of the language of our ancestors. I wish I would have had a tape recorder to sit in the middle of the room when my Grandma and Great Grandma were talking to my aunts and uncles. The words would not be politically correct today, but they spoke to a young boy in ways that the greatest evangelists of today could not speak. My grandma, who was an eloquent speaker, used words that not only defined the situation, they depicted it. You could see what she was saying.
Philippians 2 (NIV)
12Therefore, 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, 13for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
When I read this passage, I can almost hear my grandmother talking. “You kids are growing up and there will come a time when you’ve got to make a decision on you your own. I know you are good kids. You have made me proud the way you have done what was needed here at home. Now, you have to keep on doing those things you know are right when you aren’t home. You all have the seed Jesus planted in you, so let it grow. That’s God’s way and He won’t leave you alone when the time comes to make these decisions. In fact, God has planted a new ‘want to’ in you. You are going to want to live for Him, but the Devil is going to try and pull you away. But God not only gave you this ‘want to’, he gave you a ‘how to.’ You will be able to fight off the Devil because God gives you the strength.”
Many of you probably didn’t know that ‘want to’ could be a noun. In my grandma’s book, it not only could be – it was. A ‘want to’ is that thing inside of you that drives you to do what you do. Some people think of it as a conscience, others as that ‘still small voice’. Paul says that it is the working of God in the lives of His people. We have in us a will that is usually contradictory to where God is leading because we are born with a sinful nature. When we invite Jesus into our lives as our Lord and Savior, we receive a new nature. That doesn’t mean that our old nature goes away. We will battle it until Jesus comes. Until then, we will be making choices between the old and the new nature. Therein lies the warfare in the Christian life.
My Grandma would say that we have to change our ‘want tos.’ Those things desired to do before we knew Jesus become less important than the things God is leading us to do. Those places we couldn’t wait to go into lose their appeal. The images that we poured into our minds are replaced by the picture of Jesus and His life, death, and resurrection. The life of a Christ-follower requires a change of mind as well as a change of heart.
Lest one get the idea that this is a “poof” and it is don’t type thing, look at what Paul says – “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” Getting your ‘want to’ changed is a process – not an event. The good thing is that God is there, working in us, to show us how to act within His will. He desires us to have the strength to do those things that please Him, so He places that power in each of us. So He not only changes our ‘want to’, but he also gives us the ‘how to.’
Paul closes out this part of his letter by giving us some guidelines for recognizing our new ‘want tos.” He says that we will do things without complaining or arguing. Our lives will take on the newness and innocence of a new-born baby. This will result in our becoming shining stars in a universe that is dying in darkness. (Philippians 2:14:15 paraphrased) Paul was pretty good at writing pictures also. I bet he and Grandma are swapping stories right now.
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