There is a tendency among us human beings to think that we can help God in the process of salvation.  We like to think in terms of God doing His part and we doing our part.  It’s like the old altar calls where the evangelist would say, “If you’ll take one step toward God, He’ll take two steps toward you.”  Salvation then becomes mostly God but some of us as well.

Yet Scripture affirms that salvation is not the work of humans.  Ephesians 2:8-9 (NKJV) is clear when it says,

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

That bothers people.  To think that salvation is by the grace of God and not by works bothers us.  To some of us, that sounds too much like “easy believe-ism.”  Salvation surely has…