And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
-Philippians 1:6 (ESV)
God is at work in the very first nanosecond of your belief in Jesus Christ; God is at work in changing your heart to believe on Jesus Christ, just as He was at work for your salvation from before the foundation of the world.
God is at work in declaring you to be right with Him in accepting you in the righteousness of His Son, in pardoning and forgiving you of your sins. He’s at work in that. His initiative is involved.
God is at work in your growing up to maturity in grace. Salvation is not something that starts with you and then continues with the work of God, nor does it start with God and then He says ‘OK, the rest is up to you.’
Salvation from beginning to end, from start to finish, is the work of the sovereign grace of God, and so He is at work building you up in Christ, and He is at work one day to present you faultless before His throne with exceeding joy and great glory, in Jesus Christ, with all the saints, perfected.
Conversion, justification, sanctification, glorification…that’s what those words are. They’re just code words so you don’t have to take as long as I just took to say all that you want to say.
- Sinclair Ferguson
No comments:
Post a Comment