Cooperate with the Inner Energizing God who Operates in us the Willing and Working

In order for us to be one in soul, we need to work out our own salvation by cooperating with the inner energizing God, who operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure; our will needs to be subdued and we need to live a submissive life to the Lord.

The book of Philippians is on the enjoyment and experience of Christ for the church life.

This book can be considered a sister book to Song of Songs in the Old Testament, a book full of types and figures related to our experience and enjoyment of Christ.

Both of these books speak about the experience of Christ, showing our need to enjoy Christ and experience Him step by step, stage by stage, until we are fully becoming the same as He is to match Him.

In Song of Songs, we see this process in a typological way; the lover advances level by level until she becomes the Shulammite, the feminine version of Solomon, to match him in every way.

Both Song of Songs and Philippians zero in on the experience of Christ.

We need to pursue the Lord day by day to enjoy Him, obtain Him, and gain more of Him. In a positive way, we need to “persecute Christ” by pursuing Him in love, seeking to gain Him, and aspiring to enjoy and experience Him more every day.

Even our pursuing, however, is not of ourselves but of the Lord; our pursuing power is His drawing power.

The more He draws us, the more we pursue Him.

As we come to the Lord in His word, we see more of Him, and we are attracted to pursue Him.

As we contact the Lord again and again, we taste His sweetness, and we have a clear sense of how wonderful and precious He is.

We are just drawn to Him. He is such a wonderful Person, and He has done everything for us.

He is doing everything in us, and we just need to cooperate.

When we see this, when we realize that the Lord is doing everything in us and for us, we just love Him and open to Him.

We will ask Him to draw us so that we can run after Him.

We will just cooperate with Him by running after Him, and our pursuing power is His drawing power.

It is so sweet and normal to tell the Lord, Lord Jesus, draw me today. Draw me with Your beauty.

Be the immense magnet drawing me and all Your seekers to Yourself. He has laid hold of us, and now we need to lay hold of Him.

He is drawing us, and we pursue Him. He seized us, and now we seize Him.

We are in this romantic and organic relationship in which we pursue Him and He draws us, we enjoy Him and experience Him, and we cooperate with His operation within us.

He energizes us, and we just cooperate with His operation within our being.

Cooperate with the Inner Energizing God who Operates in us the Willing and the Working

Phil. 2:12-13 shows us that, on our side, we need to work out our own salvation, and on God’s side, He operates in us both the willing and the working.

He operates, and we cooperate. For us as believers in Christ to be one in soul, we need to deal with our will; the way we do this is by cooperating with the inner energizing God.

The inner energizing God operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure, and we simply cooperate with Him by working out our own salvation.

We can work out our own salvation not because we are able to or because we’re more zealous than others; it is because God works within us.

As believers in Christ, we need to realize that the invisible, abstract, and mysterious God is within us operating in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.

We simply need to cooperate with the inner energizing God who operates in us.

If we don’t cooperate with Him, we will miss this practical salvation.

We may think that it is impossible for us to work out our own salvation, but Paul’s word is clear: God operates in us, and we simply cooperate with the inner energizing God.

He does everything: we just cooperate.

This can be likened to driving a car. We do not push the car or make it work by our own strength; we simply get it started and drive it.

It is not us moving the car; we can’t move a car, for it takes a considerable effort to do this.

But we can operate the car, if we know how to do it and if the car is running.

Our God is the “best car” and He is operating, running all the time; He just needs someone to cooperate with Him by “driving the car.”

He works in us, and we work out our own salvation.

God has a wonderful, marvellous, and all-encompassing organic salvation; He has done everything and He is ready to do everything in us.

We just need to cooperate. Our will needs to be exercised not to do this or that but to cooperate with the inner energizing God who operates in us the willing and the working.

Because God is working in us, we are able to work out our own salvation.

This is amazing, wonderful, yet so mysterious.

We have to admit that we cannot change ourselves; there’s no way for us to improve ourselves in a lasting way, and we cannot better ourselves.

But God operates in us. He made us in His image and according to His likeness, and He has come into us to change us from within to without, so that we may be transformed and conformed to His image.

He only needs our cooperation. He will do everything.

He is energizing us, He is strengthening us into our inner man, and He wants to make His home in our heart (Eph. 3:17).

We just need to open to Him and cooperate with Him. If we take care of the indwelling God, the One who energizes us and operates in us, everything will be fine.

We don’t have to make big decisions to do this great thing for the Lord or to change that part of our life; we simply need to cooperate with the inner energizing God who operates in us both the willing and the working.

We need to exercise our spirit with our subdued and resurrected will to choose to work out our own salvation by cooperating with the indwelling Triune God, who operates within us the willing for His good pleasure.

Many times we are not willing to cooperate with the Lord; in such times, we can just tell Him to operate in us the willing.

Many times we are not able to change ourselves or be transformed in ourselves, so we need to ask the Lord to operate in us the working.

He operates the willing and the working, and we cooperate by working out our own salvation.

Lord Jesus, we want to work out our own salvation for it is God who operates in us both the willing and the working. Hallelujah, the Triune God indwells us to operate in us the willing and the working for His good pleasure. We open to You, dear Lord Jesus, and we want to cooperate with the inner energizing God who operates in us. We choose to work out our own salvation by cooperating with Your inner operating. Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit with our subdued and resurrected will to choose to work out our own salvation! We choose to cooperate with the indwelling Triune God, who operates within us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure. Oh Lord, You see how unwilling we are to cooperate with You. You see that we cannot work out in us what You want to do in us. We open to You. We want to cooperate with the inner energizing God so that God may operate in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure!

Being Transformed in our Will to have a Submissive and Strengthened Will Cooperating with God

In Song of Songs 4:4, we see in typology concerning our transformed will.

In this verse we see that the Lord’s loving seeker has a neck like the tower of David, built for an armoury: a thousand bucklers hang on it, all the shields of the mighty men.

When the Bible speaks concerning the neck, it signifies our will; those who are stubborn and pride, walking according to their self-will, are stiff-necked ones (Isa. 3:16).

The neck denotes man’s will under God. God wants that our will would be submissive to us; He considers the submission of man’s will as the most beautiful thing in man.

However, God doesn’t want to “destroy our will” and “use us as robots”; rather, He wants our will to be submissive to Him and strengthened to cooperate with Him.

Our neck needs to be like the tower of David; a tower is strong, standing tall, something strengthened.

Our will needs to be not only subdued by the Lord to be submissive to Him; it also needs to be strengthened and to stand strong for the Lord.

On one hand, we need to be brought into submission to God and our will needs to be made submissive so that it does not rise against God or rebel against Him.

On the other hand, we need to be strengthened in our will so that we may cooperate with Him and stand for Him in a strong way.

The neck being like a tower in Song of Songs 4:4 signifies that we as believers in Christ need to have our will strengthened by God to the point that we no longer love the world and are no longer affected by Satan.

Our will needs to be brought into complete submission to Christ and be taken captive by Him.

Christ has defeated us, captivated us, and taken us as captives; now we are captives of Christ, and our will is being transformed to be submissive and strengthened to cooperate with God.

We need to tell the Lord, Oh Lord, conquer me. Subdue me. Make me Your captive. Never let me win. Defeat me all the time!

Many times in our Christian life it is not God who subdues us but we win the battle; we defeat the Lord in our experience, and we do not submit to Him.

Actually, in ourselves, we are simply rebellious, and we have no shred of submission in our being.

But praise the Lord, we can cooperate with the inner energizing God who operates in us the willing and the working.

He operates in us and we cooperate with Him.

We may be so strong in our will against God that we never let Him win, but we can tell Him, Lord, I open to You; defeat me and subdue my will. Make me Your captive. I want to cooperate with You and not rebel against You.

As we open to the Lord in this way again and again, our will is made submissive to the Lord and it is also strengthened by Him to stand with Him in the warfare against the enemy.

Spiritual warfare is fought for the purpose of claiming the will; the victory of Christ is for the preservation of the believers’ will from the enemy’s usurpation.

The fact that the armoury is stored within the tower of David signifies the victory of Christ for the preservation of the believers’ will from the enemy’s usurpation.

There are bucklers and shields (for protection) and mighty men (strength) in our transformed will, which is both subdued and strengthened.

In summary, Song of Songs 4:4 indicates that the believer is willing to submit to Christ’s will, and our will is as strong as a tower for the carrying out of His will.

We are on guard vigilantly and do not allow the enemy to usurp our submissive yet strengthened will.

May the Lord gain this in us in our experience.

Lord Jesus, we love You. We open to You. Defeat us all the time, Lord, and never let us win. Make us Your captive in Your triumphant procession. May our will be submissive to You so that it may cooperate with You. Oh Lord, we praise You for Your victory for the preservation of our will from the enemy’s usurpation. Bring us into complete submission to Christ in our will. We want to live one with You and have our will submissive to You. Amen, Lord, strengthen us in our will to stand strong for You and for Your interest, one with You in the battle against the enemy. May our will submit to Your will, and may we be on guard vigilantly to not allow the enemy to usurp our submissive will. Oh Lord Jesus, have Your way in us and through us, especially in our will, that we may be one in soul!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ed Marks in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 23, “The Song of Songs,” pp. 61-62, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing, Experiencing, and Enjoying Christ as Revealed in Philippians (2023 Memorial Day Weekend Conference), week 3, entitled, Being One in Soul to Enjoy Christ by Thinking the One Thing, by Being One with Christ in His Inward Parts, and by Allowing God to Operate in Us the Willing and the Working for His Good Pleasure.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – By the cross discern the spirit, / With the mind by light renewed, / All emotion consecrated, / And the will in love subdued. (Hymns #748 stanza 3)
  – Oh, save me, Lord! Subdue this stubborn will; / Oh, save me, Lord! / In spite of all, Thy purposes fulfil / In me, Oh, Lord; / I yield my self, and all I have and am, / To follow Thee, Thou all redeeming Lamb! (Hymns #385 stanza 4)
  – My weakened will, Lord, Thou canst renew; / My sinful nature Thou canst subdue; / Fill me just now with power anew; / Power to pray and power to do! / Teach me to pray, Lord, teach me to pray; / Thou art my pattern day unto day; / Thou art my surety, now and for aye; / Teach me to pray, Lord, teach me to pray. (Hymns #766 stanzas 3-4)