Work out your salvation.....

Philippians 2:12-13 "Therefore, 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, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose."

More from Dallas Willard about "Transforming our Social Dimension -

And in order to do our part in the process of spiritual formation of social relations we must deeply identify and understand what is wrong in our relations with others (whether that wrong is coming from us or toward us) and how it can be changed. Thus we have spoken of assault and withdrawal.

The sixth commandment, "Honor your father and mother," deals with a relation so intimate in its nature that the command with reference to it must be positive, for to omit the positive here would amount to an injury to both parties involved. Violation of it disrupts the human soul and make dysfunctional people as nothing else does.

Now we can see immediately that spiritual formation in Christ will mean becoming persons who would not, and therefore do not, assault those to whom they stand in relation, those whom they are with.

But withdrawal within a relationship, like assault, also wounds those involved.

So, far from assault and withdrawal, the social area of our life is meant by God to be a play of constant mutual blessing. Pain and dysfunctionality result from the lack of this. Of course there are degrees of "withness: or involvement that human beings have with one another, these make a difference in the precise character of the "mutual blessing" appropriate in the given case. But every contact with a human being should be one of goodwill and respect, with a readiness to acknowledge, make way for, or assist the other in suitable ways.

Could the epidemic of addictions and dysfunctions from which the masses suffer possibly be related to the fact that we are constantly in the presence of people who are withdrawn from us, who don't want to acknowledge we are there and frankly feel more at ease if we weren't - people who in many cases explicitly reject us and feel it only right to do so?

I do not mean to suggest that anyone can overcome our desperate social situation by an individual act of will. Far from it. Whatever might be done, that isn't it. This is the world we now have. To do anything of substance about it will require a grace and wisdom that is at no individual's disposal, and a long-range plan of personal and social development is required. No doubt God has one in mind.

The first main element in the transformed social dimension is for individuals to come to see themselves as whole, as God himself sees them. It is this vision of oneself from God's point of view that makes it possible to regard oneself as blessed, no matter what has happened. Our life in him is whole and it is blessed, no matter what has or has not been done to us, no matter how shamefully our human circles of sufficiency have been violated.

It is the God-given vision of us as whole in him that draws all the poisons from our relationships to others and enables us to go forward with sincere forgiveness and blessing toward them.

But from within that outlook we can cease from assault and withdrawal and can extend ourselves in blessing to all whose lives we touch.