Who Gets the Credit?
Sep/12/07 04:13 Filed in: Apologetics
This is another reason why I believe God has chosen
us and predestined us who are followers of Christ
and that is... He gets all the credit for my
salvation. I know there was nothing good in me and
I was completely dead in my transgressions until
God breathed spiritual life into me. He gave me the
faith to believe and the ability to repent and turn
towards Him. He then imputed me with His
righteousness.
John Piper has a great little article that expands on this idea from Desiring God website. Here is what he said:
“Some might say that, in regards to our salvation, it really doesn't matter who chose whom first. Why do you believe it is important to understand that God chose us first? Because God means to get all the glory for our salvation. We need to know the One on whom we're leaning and what we're really leaning on Him for. Let me say a word about each of these two. The second one: we need to know how we got saved. We were born not of blood, not of man, not of the human will--we were born of God. That is, we were brought into being as spiritually alive people by God. We were dead, according to Ephesians 2, and now we are alive together with God--by grace we have been saved.
Grace is the sovereign work by which God speaks to the dead corpse of our own spiritual life, and says, "Lazarus, come forth," and we awake from the dead, or "John Piper, come forth!," and we were brought into being. Now we need to know that so that we can rest in God's sovereign saving of us. That's how we got saved! We didn't somehow raise ourselves from the dead. We didn't somehow create--out of nothing--spiritual affections. God did this for us, which leads now to the first thing: He means to be glorified for all of this. God wants to be acknowledged for all that He has done and for all that He is. We will not give Him all of the praise and all of the glory that He should get if we don't think He did all that He did for us. So I think it is really important that we teach people how they actually got saved, even if they don't fully understand how they got saved, because we want them to begin--now better than never--praising God and honoring and relying on God for all that he did and not just for part of it.”
AMEN! God is so good to us!
All praise, all worship, all glory, all honor, go to the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ.
Wes
Galatians 2:20
John Piper has a great little article that expands on this idea from Desiring God website. Here is what he said:
“Some might say that, in regards to our salvation, it really doesn't matter who chose whom first. Why do you believe it is important to understand that God chose us first? Because God means to get all the glory for our salvation. We need to know the One on whom we're leaning and what we're really leaning on Him for. Let me say a word about each of these two. The second one: we need to know how we got saved. We were born not of blood, not of man, not of the human will--we were born of God. That is, we were brought into being as spiritually alive people by God. We were dead, according to Ephesians 2, and now we are alive together with God--by grace we have been saved.
Grace is the sovereign work by which God speaks to the dead corpse of our own spiritual life, and says, "Lazarus, come forth," and we awake from the dead, or "John Piper, come forth!," and we were brought into being. Now we need to know that so that we can rest in God's sovereign saving of us. That's how we got saved! We didn't somehow raise ourselves from the dead. We didn't somehow create--out of nothing--spiritual affections. God did this for us, which leads now to the first thing: He means to be glorified for all of this. God wants to be acknowledged for all that He has done and for all that He is. We will not give Him all of the praise and all of the glory that He should get if we don't think He did all that He did for us. So I think it is really important that we teach people how they actually got saved, even if they don't fully understand how they got saved, because we want them to begin--now better than never--praising God and honoring and relying on God for all that he did and not just for part of it.”
AMEN! God is so good to us!
All praise, all worship, all glory, all honor, go to the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ.
Wes
Galatians 2:20