Prodigal: Well, they are finally, popping up after we planted them last year.

Me: Darn pretty too!

This is from the book A Spiritual Clinic by J. Oswald Sanders

The expression “work out” carries the idea of working out to an ultimate goal, to a finish, as in a scientific or mathematical problem. The question of the believer’s standing before God is never in view in the passage, nor is there room for the idea that our sanctification is something completed in a high moment of surrender to Christ. It is true that full surrender to Christ is necessary to full sanctification, but the crisis of surrender is only the initiation of the process. We have a life job on our hands. “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after” (Phil. 3:12), Paul protested. Sanctification is not automatic, the result of mere fluxion of time. The free agency of man in cooperating with God is involved. God sends sun and rain, provides soil and seed, but there would no crop if the farmer did not plow and fertilize, sow and reap.

The rich man shall lie down, but he shall not be gathered: he openeth his eyes, and he is not. Job 27:19 (KJV)

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org