While listening to Douglas Wilson's Crash Course in Basic Christianity, he commented on sanctification from the following verses:
Philippians 2:12-13
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
If we try to work out what God has not worked in, we are a DRY WELL. We cannot produce what we don't have and any increased effort to draw water from that dry well will only increase our frustration.
If we do not work out what God has worked in, we are a SWAMP. We have water in abundance, but it isn't going anywhere. It is standing water without an outlet, getting stale, and growing stagnant like manna kept overnight.
If we work out what God has worked in, we are a FLOWING RIVER. We have water flowing into us and through us and beyond us. We have living water within and living water without. It is pouring in and pouring out. The water is moving and active and lively. It continues to enter because its source is never exhausted and it has somewhere to go because its receiver is eager to share it so that everything which leaves is something that was put there originally by Someone else.
John 7:38-39
"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive.
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