Yesterday I began this little study of the Persistence of God by looking at how salvation reveals the character of God (see yesterday’s post). Today I would like to look at how salvation reveals the cause of God and just how persistent God is in fulfilling His cause.
How does anyone come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior? Do people seek Him or does He seek people? Before we (in ourselves) answer this, it is important to know what the Bible has to say about these things.
The Scriptures unequivocally teach that men do not seek God but rather they reject Him. Paul writes in Romans 3:10-11 –
10 as it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; 11 THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD…
Any of the works we might even try to do for God are said to “fall short” of God’s standards of perfect and complete righteousness (Romans 3:23). Before we are drawn to Christ, we don’t even understand God’s standard of righteousness. It is not until God reveals His standards of righteousness to us, opens our eyes, gives us faith to believe, and draws us to Himself that man will receive salvation.
Before he came to Christ, C.S. Lewis, the author of the Chronicle of Narnia, the Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity to name a few as well as being a brilliant scholar, was a thoroughgoing agnostic. His accounting of conversion to Christ is insightful:
“In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son, at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape?”
This was not a man “seeking” after salvation. Lewis had to learn that salvation was from God. Did you seek for salvation? No – the bible says you resisted and rejected Him. The Lord graciously beats down the hardened heart of the one He calls until that person can do nothing more than joyously yield to the call of God. And while there may be a time in which the one called entertained the idea that he did seek the Lord for salvation on his own, he needs to come to the Biblical awareness that this was only because God was there beforehand moving him to do so. As that old anonymous hymn so aptly puts it:
How does anyone come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior? Do people seek Him or does He seek people? Before we (in ourselves) answer this, it is important to know what the Bible has to say about these things.
The Scriptures unequivocally teach that men do not seek God but rather they reject Him. Paul writes in Romans 3:10-11 –
10 as it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; 11 THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD…
Any of the works we might even try to do for God are said to “fall short” of God’s standards of perfect and complete righteousness (Romans 3:23). Before we are drawn to Christ, we don’t even understand God’s standard of righteousness. It is not until God reveals His standards of righteousness to us, opens our eyes, gives us faith to believe, and draws us to Himself that man will receive salvation.
Before he came to Christ, C.S. Lewis, the author of the Chronicle of Narnia, the Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity to name a few as well as being a brilliant scholar, was a thoroughgoing agnostic. His accounting of conversion to Christ is insightful:
“In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son, at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape?”
This was not a man “seeking” after salvation. Lewis had to learn that salvation was from God. Did you seek for salvation? No – the bible says you resisted and rejected Him. The Lord graciously beats down the hardened heart of the one He calls until that person can do nothing more than joyously yield to the call of God. And while there may be a time in which the one called entertained the idea that he did seek the Lord for salvation on his own, he needs to come to the Biblical awareness that this was only because God was there beforehand moving him to do so. As that old anonymous hymn so aptly puts it:
I sought the Lord and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me;
It was not I that found, O Savior true;
No I was found of Thee.
Salvation truly does belong to God. As 1 John 4:19 reminds us –
“We love because He first loved us.”
Our salvation begins with God. It is the “good work” He began and is therefore not of ourselves. Why does God bring salvation this way? Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us –
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
God will have no one in heaven claiming, even in the slightest of ways, that he was responsible for his own salvation. There will be no one who can say, “I must admit that God did most of the work concerning my salvation. I was far from Him and He did call me. But there were those few crises in my life in which my convictions were tried, my persistence challenged, but I hung on tight. So then, I am really here because of the greatness of my faith.” Let us know that God does not share His glory with any other (Isaiah 42:8).
Paul wrote, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you…” According to Paul, God began the work, not you. It was God who was persistent in seeking you, revealing to you your sin, and then filling you with faith – faith so that you would believe. The great cause of God was to bring you into fellowship with Himself – and He is persistent and will bring it about in all whom He has chosen to the glory and praise of His name.
2 comments:
Thanks for this Pastor Ed.
I've had a few people say to me over the past year "just believe and receive" like it's really simple and completely up to me. But it never felt/seems that simple to me - to me it feels like way more of a struggle.
Thanks, Wilm
Wilm,
The grace of God in salvation is rich and freely received. It is all of God, yet we do labor and strive, not to attain or even to maintain salvation, but truly in response to so great a salvation. As the Apostle Paul noted in Phippians 2:12-13:
12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you , both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
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