“…work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling,
for it is God who works in you
both to will and to do for his good pleasure.”
Philippians 2:12-13

“With fear and trembling…”

Salvation is not raising your hand after hearing a sermon that moved you. It’s not acknowledging that there probably is a God – no, even the demons believe that:

“You believe that there is one God? You do well.
Even the demons believe and tremble!”
James 2:19

Salvation is such a serious thing that the Scripture says we are to pursue it with FEAR and TREMBLING. There’s no place here for saying a few words and then thinking one is saved.

Salvation is coming to understand one’s depravity. If you think you’re not depraved, you haven’t understood salvation and you need to start at the beginning and ask God to reveal to you the state of your heart.

“The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked;”
Jeremiah 17:9

Once you’ve realized your lostness, salvation is asking the Savior to save you, surrendering yourself and your entire life to him.

Salvation has to start with acknowledging the truth about one’s self, and only God can reveal that to a person because most people think they’re “good.” Most people justify any wrong they see in themselves. They blame someone else or something else for any dysfunction within. But if one understood the way of salvation, he would understand why it truly is to be sought with fear and trembling.

Those who have been born again have entered into a whole new life and once experienced, when they see how their lives have changed, when they experience the unfathomable love of Jesus Christ, they fear and tremble at the thought of NOT bowing before him, and they will thank and praise God for all eternity.