As long as you are doing what you can for him, then I think that is one of the most important things that you can do.
Well, this isn't actually what the Bible says, though.
The Christian life is God doing for us, not the other way 'round. He opens our minds so we can see the Truth of the Gospel (
John 6:44; John 16:8; 2 Timothy 2:25), then He saves us (
John 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Timothy 2:5), and then He begins to transform His born-again children by the Holy Spirit (
2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 8:9-16; Galatians 5:22-23) making them more and more like Jesus. All of this
He does to us; we can't do any of this for Him ourselves.
Like begets like. A cat begets a cat; a cockroach begets a cockroach; a rose bush begets roses; and you beget only more of
you. If you want to beget a
godly life, the only sort of life God wants from you, you have to go to
Him and get Him to beget Himself in you; for
only God can beget godliness in you.
This is, in part, what Jesus was saying in the following statement he made to his disciples:
John 15:4-5
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
The apostle Paul made the same sort of statement:
Romans 5:6-10
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
We come to God for salvation as profoundly weak, sin-fouled creatures without the ability to live as God wants us to, as He created us to do. See:
Titus 3:3-5; Ephesians 2:1-9; Colossians 1:21-22. We continue to be weak and wayward even after we're saved, however, which is why we read in the Bible:
Philippians 2:12-13
12 ...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
We can only "work out" what God has first worked into us. In other words, if God hasn't first worked into us both the ability and desire to do His will, we won't "work out our salvation" in the way He intends. Instead, we'll just beget, or produce,
our version of godliness. God doesn't want
our version, though; He wants
His version, which He intends to form in us by the Person of the Holy Spirit. If we'll walk with God in the way He's told us to in His word, God the Holy Spirit, who lives within every born-again child of God (
Romans 8:9-14; 1 John 4:13; John 14:16-17; Titus 3:5-7; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20) will act upon us and change us so that we are more and more truly godly.
Do you know how to "walk in the Spirit"? Are you walking daily in the Spirit?
Galatians 5:16
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
Galatians 5:22-25
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
If not, you are walking in the flesh and are a rebel toward God, as a result. No rebel can ever produce a life with which God is pleased. In fact, God
opposes His children who are walking in the flesh rather than in the Spirit.
Hopefully, you can see now that "just trying to do your best" for God isn't at all what God wants from us. Our best stinks and God doesn't want it. He wants, instead, to manifest, or reveal, Himself in us, by the life and work of the Person of the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can beget in us the sort of life with which God is pleased.
Isaiah 64:8
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