God operates in us, so we should do all things without Murmurings and Reasonings

We can work out our own salvation because it is God who operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure; therefore, we should do all things without murmurings and reasonings.

It’s not that we by ourselves carry out our own salvation; we can’t do it, and many times we’re not even willing to do it, but God operates in us to do it. We have an inner operating and energizing God, and whenever we say Amen to His speaking and inner leading, He operates in us.

God is the One who wants to carry out our salvation in our being, but He needs our permission, our cooperation; this is why we need to obey to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

Inwardly we need to be full of fear, not fear of being punished or disciplined by God but fear of causing God to not be happy with us. We love God so much, so we inwardly have an attitude of not upsetting Him, for we treasure His smile and His indwelling.

Outwardly there’s also an attitude of trembling, being somewhat fearful that we would not misaim, that we would not miss the mark.

God knows that we don’t have the ability and the capacity to work out our salvation, so He Himself has come into us as the pattern to live in us and do everything in us. If we just open to Him a little and agree with His inner working, He will do in us according to His word.

When the Lord Jesus was about to be conceived in Mary, the angel told her the news, and her response was simply, Let it be done to me according to Your word.

We may not understand, we may not grasp the full scope and implications of what the Lord wants to do, and we may not even fully agree, but if we just are willing, if we say Amen to His working, He will do in us what He wants to do.

Our God operates in us as our subjective salvation; this One is the Triune God. The Father is in us (Phil. 2:13), Christ is in us (2 Cor. 13:3, 5), and the Spirit is in us (Phil. 1:19; Rom. 8:11); the entire Triune God embodied in Christ and realised as the Spirit operates in us and works in us.

He passed through the process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, death, and resurrection, and He is the Spirit with our spirit; He supplies us bountifully for any specific or distressful situation, and He constantly saves us in all the daily things of our life.

God Operates in us both the Willing and the Working from our Spirit to our Soul and Body

Phil. 2:12-13 are two verses that can be quite puzzling if you think about them; on the one hand Paul asks us to be obedient to God and work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, and on the other hand he says that it is God who operates in us both the willing and the working.

It is like “the chicken and the egg” situation, which one is first, our working or His operating? Are we willing and obedient first, or is God first operating to make us willing and obedient? We can only say yes to both, for yes, we are willing, and yes, God is operating.

Whenever we say, Amen, Lord, I am willing; do in me as You have said in Your word! – that willingness is not from us but it is from God who operates in us.

But without our consent, without us making this statement and giving Him permission, He cannot operate in us. We may even tell Him, Lord, I am willing; help my unwillingness.

In the weakness of our unwillingness the Lord wants to hear us that we are willing. As we tell the Lord that we are willing, this opens the door for God to work out this willingness in us.

It is God who operates the willing within and also the working without for His good pleasure.

The willing is within and the working is without. The willing is related to our will; God’s operation within us starts from our spirit and spreads into our soul with its mind, emotion, and will, and eventually God’s operation will spread into our physical body (Rom. 8:4, 6, 11).

He does this for the good pleasure of His will (Eph. 1:5), which is to operate in us so that we may reach the climax of His supreme salvation (see Rom. 5:10, 17).

According to the good pleasure of His will, God operates in us both the willing and the working. He comes into our spirit and, as we open the door of our heart to Him, He begins to spread from our spirit to the different parts of our soul.

As God operates in us, He makes us willing; He works out willingness in us and, as we are willing, He is free to do what He desires to do, what is pleasing to Him.

God’s good pleasure, His desire, is to make us the same as Christ – the same as God in life, nature, expression, and function, but not in the Godhead; He wants to make us glorious. The destination of God’s salvation is for us to enter into His glory!

No human being is glorious; glory belongs to God, it is an attribute of God, for glory is God Himself expressed. Wherever and whenever God is expressed, that is glory.

The destination of our salvation is glory. God’s intention and His good pleasure is to make us all, who were vile unworthy sinners, as glorious as He is. So God is operating within us, working out the willingness in us; as we say Amen to Him, He will do in us according to His word.

Lord Jesus, we are willing: operate in us and work out in us whatever You desire according to Your good pleasure. Thank You Lord, Your good pleasure is to make us the same as Christ, that is, to make us glorious; we say Amen, do it in us, Lord! Even though we are weak and we are not fully willing, but Lord, help our unwillingness. Operate in us and work in us so that we may be willing and give You full permission to spread from our spirit into our will, our mind, and our emotion. Spread in us until You saturate our entire being with Yourself and You are the One expressed through us!

Seeing that Murmurings and Reasonings Frustrate us from Working out our Salvation

After Paul tells us that it is God who operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure, right away he said, Do all things without murmurings and reasonings (Phil. 2:14).

The first thing that frustrate us from carrying out our salvation to the fullest extent is murmuring and reasoning; these frustrate us from experiencing and enjoying Christ to the uttermost.

What is murmuring? According to the dictionary, it is a low volume continuous sound; it is not an intermittent sound but a humming sound expressing a sense of discontent.

An example of this can be seen with the people of Israel in the wilderness; they were murmuring all the time, complaining that Moses brought them out of Egypt where they had meat, bread, leaks, and onions, and they were now in this great wilderness where they had nothing to eat and drink.

Murmuring is in a low volume, not a shouting or a big protest; there’s something within our being, a low volume, continuous sense of dissatisfaction. To murmur is to always complain, not being happy with this and with that; nothing can make us happy, and we always have something to complain about.

We may be free from division and arguments, but are we free from murmuring? We all have to admit that we are not.

Reasoning is a mental exercise to come / arrive at some judgement or conclusion, being ready to reason about everything and anything.

If a meeting lasts a little longer, we may reason about it; if there’s a conference during a holiday, we may reason that we want to spend time with our family, so why is the conference right then and there?

After Paul told us this encouraging fact that God operates in us, he encouraged us to do all things without murmurings and reasonings, for he realised that these are nothing but the expression of our disobedience, and these frustrate God’s further work in us.

Murmurings are of our emotion and may come mainly from sisters (though the brothers are not exempt), and reasonings are of our mind and come mainly from the brothers (and the sisters are not exempt).

We may say that the sisters may do a lot of murmurings, but the brothers also murmur; we may say that the brothers are always reasoning, but the sisters also reason.

We all murmur and reason; this happens a lot in the church life, for it is part of our human life and it is present in our practical church life.

This is why it is so difficult for the church to be built up and for us to be perfected, for we still live in the realm in which we’re not happy with things so we murmur and complain, and we reason about everything in our mind.

Murmurings and reasonings are due to disobedience to God; when we are obedient to God, all our murmurings and reasonings are slain.

If by the Lord’s mercy we realise that there’s murmurings and reasonings in our being, we also need to realise that there’s a weapon to slay them – our obedience.

Brother Watchman Nee had a cellmate in prison who saw how he was being mistreated by the guards; sometimes they would give him food, and at other times they would purposely not give him food.

In many ways they were quite unfair and mean to him, but brother Nee didn’t say anything, to the point that even his cellmate was upset and asked him to say something.

But brother Nee said, It’s OK, whatever they want to do, let it be. There was no upsetting, no disquiet complaint; he simply accepted whatever God arranged in His sovereignty.

This is why after 20 years in prison, brother Nee could say, I have maintained my joy. His cellmate was saved seeing his testimony.

It is not easy when God puts us in an unpleasant environment, but even in such situations we need to submit ourselves to God’s arrangement, having no complaining, reasonings, or murmuring. This is the way to experience Christ and allow the Lord’s life to flow through us.

When we exercise our self-will according to our own preference to do this and that for God, we may be quite zealous and active according to our plan, our goal, and our preference… – this rather frustrates God and hinders Him from accomplishing what He desires to do in us.

If we are disobedient to God and always murmur and reason, we will not enter into the enjoyment and experience of Christ, just as the children of Israel did not enter into the good land. But our obedience to God is the main weapon to slay our murmurings and reasonings.

Lord Jesus, unveil us to see that our murmurings and reasonings frustrate us from carrying out our salvation to the fullest extent. Save us from murmurings, from always complaining and expressing our discontent. Lord, save us from our reasonings, always exercising our mind to reason and argue. Oh Lord, may we not be disobedient to God but learn obedience, for obedience to God slays all murmurings and reasonings. May we accept whatever God has arranged for us with no opinion or feeling about it, and may we just desire to gain Christ and experience Him in all things.

This article can also be read in the Romanian language / Citiți acest articol în limba română vizitând următorul link, Dumnezeu operează în noi, deci trebuie să facem toate lucrurile fără murmure și raționamente.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. James Lee for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Philippians, msg. 13 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Experience of Christ (2019 Memorial Day Conference), week 3, Experiencing Christ as Our Constant Salvation.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # He’s pledged to save us to the full, / His life is operating; / He’s doing everything for us / ’Tis all for our perfecting; / Our life’s a failure at its best, / Only His life can stand the test: / His life brings full salvation! (Hymns #1130)
  # My stubborn will at last hath yielded; / I would be Thine, and Thine alone, / And this the prayer my lips are bringing, / “Lord, let in me Thy will be done.” / Sweet will of God, still fold me closer, / Till I am wholly lost in Thee; / Sweet will of God, still fold me closer, / Till I am wholly lost in Thee. (Hymns #383)
  # Every moment, every member, / Girded, waiting Thy command; / Underneath the yoke to labor / Or be laid aside as planned. / When restricted in pursuing, / No disquiet will beset; / Underneath Thy faithful dealing / Not a murmur or regret. (Hymns #403)