Grace-Driven Effort

Salvation is by grace alone (according to Scripture alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone and to the glory of God alone). At the same time, God calls us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling - not because His grace is not sufficient, but precisely because His grace is sufficient for us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (for it is Him who works in us to will and to act according to His good purpose)!

Total Depravity

One of the most striking evidences of sinful human nature lies in the universal propensity for downward drift. In other words, it takes thought, resolve, energy, and effort to bring about reform. In the grace of God, sometimes human beings display such virtues. But where such virtues are absent, the drift is invariably toward compromise, comfort, indiscipline, sliding disobedience, and decay that advances, sometimes at a crawl and sometimes at a gallop, across generations.

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

- D. A. Carson, For the Love of God (Volume Two)

Depravity is total. But grace abounds!

"For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them - yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed." - 1 Corinthians 15:9-10 (NIV)

"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed - not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence - continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." - Philippians 2:12-13 (NIV)

"We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labour, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me." - Colossians 1:28-29 (NIV)

Links: By Grace Alone (23 Apr 10), Grace and Growth (29 Jun 10)