God's salvation is all of His power, and none of our own!
He chooses His people, He fore-loves us, He takes possession of us by the Holy Ghost changing our hearts from stone to flesh, and He gives us faith in the Gospel promises of salvation and eternal life.
God plants in the hearts of His loved ones faith to trust in the obedience and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
By His power alone, He rescues us, redeems us, and forgives us.
But beyond that, God promises us a great inheritance in glory! It is a perfect, everlasting inheritance that never runs out.
The power of God to provide all these blessings is sealed by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the grave.
Not only that, but the Lord keeps His people through faith in Jesus. The same power that gave us our first faith, sustains that faith unto the end. Our grasp by faith upon the sacrifice and promises is upheld and strengthened by the infinite power of God.
We rejoice in the Gospel, though in this life, our faith is proved through many trials and snares and persecutions and sorrows and weaknesses.
Peter explains that God's gift of faith is more precious than gold, because by it we lay hold upon eternal life.
Peter says that, though gold perishes, our faith will never fail, but will withstand the hottest furnace.
God's power will sustain it to the end, and Jesus has prayed that our faith never fail. Christ's prayers are always answered.
Because God's power will uphold our faith through testing to the end, when Jesus appears, the testing of our faith will be yet another thing that honors and glorifies and praises our dear Savior.
Our faith will be vindicated in the end! |
