Our job is to trust, and God’s part is to work.
If we are to be delivered from the grip of sin, if it really is God’s plan to give us “everything good for doing his will” and to “work in us what is pleasing to him,”[1] then we need to be transformed, and we certainly can’t transform ourselves.
Most of us have tried to make ourselves holy and have failed miserably. But God will do it if we put ourselves into his hands and trust him without reserve. When we trust, the Lord works, and a great deal is done, not by us, but by him. He disciplines and trains us by inward exercises and outward circumstances. He makes everything in our lives submit to his purpose of making us, day by day, into the image of Christ.
Sanctification, being made holy and set apart for God, is a matter of surrender and trust on our part, and a process of development on God’s part.[2] We must each become as a lump of clay in the hands of the Divine Potter, consciously surrendering to him and continually trusting him. Expect him to change you, making you into a vessel that honors him and is prepared for his purposes.
His way of accomplishing what we have entrusted to him may be vastly different from the way we have in mind, but he knows best. We must trust him to use us and our circumstances. Otherwise, we will be as clay taken out of the hands of the Potter, wondering, even as we refuse his workings, why we are not complete and perfect vessels.
His pace may not be as swift as we would choose. Maturity is never reached in a moment but is the result of God’s Holy Spirit working within us. A lump of clay, from the moment it comes under the transforming hand of the potter, is just what the potter wants it to be at any particular time during each hour of the process. Even in a state of incompletion, it pleases him; but it is very far from being matured into the vessel the potter intends to make it at last. We have to be patient.
Ask the Lord to work in you in whatever way he chooses. Then, by an exercise of faith, continue to surrender to him, following immediately any direction you know is from him. When we do that, we are pleasing God simply by our trust and submission. God has given us the gift of free will. Therefore, his work in us depends upon our choosing to submit to him. Still, we must understand clearly that it is God’s working within us, not our own work from our own determination, that is the cause of all I will cover in this book.
[1] Hebrews 13:21
[2] “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and will do it.” I Thessalonians 5:23-24
Smoother Sailing 
Yep. And, if you’re willing, tell me about a time when trusting Jesus to “be the rope” got real.
Quitting my career after 24 years in corporate and starting a home flipping business ranks highly in the “Jesus please be my rope!!” Category. 👍🏽
It does indeed!
My first time rock climbing I remember my friend telling me how strong the specs on the rope were. He asked if I believed the rope would hold me… of course. But when he asked me to trust by actually leaning back on the rope over 70 ft to the bottom… it got real!