God Does Everything!

We know that justification is ours through the Lord Jesus and requires no work on our part, but we think that sanctification is dependent on our own efforts. We know we can receive forgiveness only by entire reliance on the Lord; yet we believe we can obtain deliverance by doing something ourselves. We fear that if we do nothing, nothing will happen. After salvation the old habit of 'doing' reasserts itself and we begin our old self-efforts again. Then God's word comes afresh to us: 'It is finished' [John 19.30]. He has done everything for us on the Cross for our forgiveness and He will do everything in us for our deliverance. In both cases He is the doer. 'It is God who works in you.'

The first words of the delivered man are very precious - 'I thank God'. If someone gives you a cup of water you thank the person who gave it, not someone else. Why did Paul say, 'Thank God'? Because God was the One who did everything... Paul saw that he was a 'wretched man', and that God alone could meet his need; so he said, 'Thank God'. God wants to do all, for He must have all the glory. If we do some of the work, then we will get some of the glory; but God must have it all Himself, so He does all the work from beginning to end.

But the Christian life is not a matter of sitting still and waiting for something to happen... All who truly live it know it to be a matter of very positive and active faith in Christ and in an altogether new principle of life - the law of the Spirit of life.