...anyone who thinks that God's full grace is a detractor or hindrance to Christian work, obedience, and responsibility has not thought long or well concerning it. For by God's grace we are enabled to do things which formerly we could not and would not, and therefore, we are exhorted to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." It is precisely because of God's gracious working in us that (1) we have a salvation to work out and (2) that we will in fact work it out and (3) that we will work it out with fear and trembling (for even the fear is given to us by God - Jeremiah 32:40 - and for to what end but that we will not turn from Him). Simply, it is a fallacious accusation that is laid upon those who attend well to the grace of God, when that accusation is that it makes us slothful in Christian living; if anyone has made such a poor appropriation of the grace of God let it be a shameful thing to him, but as for those who understand grace aright, it is known that the grace of God is both the enabling principle and the teacher that educates us to deny ungodliness; we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling precisely because God graciously works in us both to will and to work for His good pleasure...
...let it be known that the grace of God is the far greater motivation to take up our personal cross, to engage in Christian practice and responsibility, to obey our Lord Jesus Christ, to live as responsible Christians, than that human motivation alone; for by the human motivation one may attend to human things or to spiritual things in their own strength (and therefore ineffectually and incompletely), and if they do attend to them, they attend to them with an incomplete obedience (which is no obedience), for they do them with a rotten attitude that stinks in light of God. But that grace which is Divine, when it comes to us in effectual power, it masters us and by mastering us it frees us to do those things that are most pleasing to God. And our doing of them is an obedience pleasing to God, for it comes from Him, and we dare not grumble or complain in the doing of those things that glorify Him, but due to grace we rejoice even if the doing results in our dying, for by grace we know with certainty that the Gospel will advance and the Church will be edified even in the event of one's persecution and suffering for the sake of Christ. Yes, effectual grace must be our daily plea before God, so that we may do what God would have us do...
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...let it be known that the grace of God is the far greater motivation to take up our personal cross, to engage in Christian practice and responsibility, to obey our Lord Jesus Christ, to live as responsible Christians, than that human motivation alone; for by the human motivation one may attend to human things or to spiritual things in their own strength (and therefore ineffectually and incompletely), and if they do attend to them, they attend to them with an incomplete obedience (which is no obedience), for they do them with a rotten attitude that stinks in light of God. But that grace which is Divine, when it comes to us in effectual power, it masters us and by mastering us it frees us to do those things that are most pleasing to God. And our doing of them is an obedience pleasing to God, for it comes from Him, and we dare not grumble or complain in the doing of those things that glorify Him, but due to grace we rejoice even if the doing results in our dying, for by grace we know with certainty that the Gospel will advance and the Church will be edified even in the event of one's persecution and suffering for the sake of Christ. Yes, effectual grace must be our daily plea before God, so that we may do what God would have us do...
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