“because I know this will lead to my salvation through your prayers and help from the Spirit of Jesus Christ. My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always, with all courage, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” Philippians 1:19-20 CSB https://bible.com/bible/1713/php.1.19-20.CSB

Paul states his constant faithfulness to proclaiming the gospel among with the prayers of the church and the continual presence of the Holy Spirit within him, will lead to his salvation. By remaining faithful to Christ, even in the midst of persecution, caused Paul to believe that he would be honored by Christ. This was Paul’s motive in life, to make Christ known until Christ returned or he was taken home. Paul was certainly saved by the work of Christ and not his own. But for Paul, the work of Christ for him was evidenced by his work for Christ to His glory. Paul saw salvation as being a gift of God through faith by grace. Who had received this gift? For Paul it was those who evidenced that gift by remaining in faith through the exercise of their salvation which is the winning and discipling of the nations particularly when we suffered for such work. Only those who consistently served Christ could speak unequivocally that they were indeed saved by Christ. Those who did nothing for Christ had no reason to believe they were truly in Christ for being in Christ means doing the work of Christ by the power of Christ. We need to assess ourselves today. We have made salvation something we believe rather than something we do with the result that less of the world knows Christ and even few obey Christ. If we are truly in Christ we will make every effort at any cost to see the world live for Christ even as we ourselves are doing.