Does Our Cooperation With God Have Redeeming Value?

Some professing Christians believe that their cooperation with God is, at least partly, what redeems them. Indeed we believe and work but we do so because God works in us to do according to his good pleasure - works which God prepared beforehand (Phil 2:13; Eph 2:10). If we are talking about salvation, your cooperation adds nothing to your salvation... rather it is an inevitable product or result OF salvation. Your cooperation does not MAINTAIN your just standing before God lest we do the very thing Paul warns of in Galatians 3:3... "having begun by the Spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh?"

We call all people everywhere to repent and believe the gospel (Acts 17:30). But because they love darkness (as we all once did) they will not respond to this call apart from the grace of God. We give the command to believe. That is our duty and their duty, but it is Jesus alone who provides what He requires. It is grace itself which makes us humble, it is Christ Himself which provides the new heart to believe (Deut 29:4; 30:6; Ezek 36:26; John 6:63, 65). Humility is not self-generated, because self-righteousness is the natural disposition of man apart from grace.

God's commands are no longer burdensome to us because we are born again.(1 John 1:2-4) But we do not obey them in order to maintain our acceptance before God, we obey them BECAUSE we already have acceptance before God, and a heart which now inclines to God.

Thu, 12/24/2015 - 12:41 -- john_hendryx

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