Kenneth Berding, Walking in the Spirit  (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 48–51:

[P]utting to death the deeds of the body is active. There is no passivity here.

I grew up in a church setting that was into “higher life” teaching. This teaching goes by many different names, including “victorious Christian living,” “the exchanged life,” and “the crucified life.” A particular stream of higher life teaching that continues to be influential is known as the Keswick Movement (pronounced KES-ik), named after an annual Bible conference that has been taking place in Keswick, England, each year since the late nineteenth century. One key aspect of higher life teaching is probably traceable even further back to a movement referred to as Quietism, which was popular in Italy, France, and Spain during the seventeenth century. If you aren’t familiar with any of these labels, it is still likely that you are familiar with a slogan that gets used in connection with various strands of this teaching: “Let Go and Let God.” Said differently, the key to the Christian life is to “let go of reliance on yourself and let God do the work in you.”

So much of what is taught in evangelical higher life circles is right and helpful, and I want to affirm much of it. The emphasis on surrendering oneself to Christ, the importance placed upon overcoming sin and living in holiness, and the awareness of the need for empowering by the Holy Spirit to defeat sin, spread the good news, and live a life pleasing to God are all praiseworthy. Higher life emphases have also been affirmed by many who have been catalysts for significant missionary thrusts during the past couple centuries. Actually, the reason it sometimes gets referred to as “higher life” teaching is because these brothers and sisters are unwilling to settle for the mediocrity they see among so many professing Christians. They know that the Scriptures teach something better. On these points, for sure, I could not agree more.

But there exists in the idea of “letting go and letting God do it” an implicit passivity. Surprisingly, many people who strongly emphasize “releasing their wills to God” and “allowing him to do his work in and through them” are not passive at all in their own lives. Nevertheless, a form of passivity is present in their teaching, and the apostle Paul would have nothing to do with it if he were here.

I remember hearing a higher life teacher once use the illustration that you should view yourself like a limp glove into which God puts his hand. The only thing you are to do is surrender yourself to God so that he can do his work through you. But the apostle Paul would disagree. I’ll let him speak for himself; then you decide whether he is encouraging passive acquiescence or whether he is active, and encouraging others to be active as well.

• Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. (2 Tim. 2:15)
• Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. (Phil. 1:27)
• So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. (2 Tim. 2:22)
• Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore. . . . (Eph. 6:11–14)
• Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (Col. 1:28–29)

This last verse is especially helpful because it emphasizes both that Christians must toil and struggle, but also that they must do it with the energy that God works within us. Similarly, when Paul says in Romans 8:13 that we need to “put to death the deeds of the body,” he emphasizes that it is to be done “by the Spirit.” But remember, such a statement is not an encouragement to passivity! We are to actively kill sinful deeds, and that activity is Spirit-empowered and Spirit-motivated.

Related: Let Go and Let God? A Survey and Analysis of Keswick Theology

Update on 8/23/2017: My latest book attempts to survey and analyze “let go and let God” theology more accessibly: