Faith

I once heard someone describe faith as a sail, and God's grace and Spirit as a force that moves us. I think this is a very apt description. Faith does take effort. To let go of ourselves and let God do the saving and the transforming is difficult indeed, and may require a lot of pain and movement of the will. Faith is active. But faith is not a work that accomplishes a task (as if we save ourselves), merits payment (as if God gives us anything on that basis), or contributes to the work of God in salvation (as if God needs our help to save us). God does need our receptivity and willingness, which requires repentance and faith, but that is really little more than opening up for God to grab the reigns. Faith is the condition through which God saves and continues to save through ongoing empowerment. Faith is when we turn our sails toward the wind so that God can blow in and through us. It's when we lean into God. The sinner who does this without any good works or sanctification (yet) nevertheless has a very deep faith in God (a faith through which God grabs us and sanctifies us). No doubt, we need to keep this posture of reliance and trust, which involves daily dipping into the means of grace (work). Good works help habituate the work of God in our souls and keep us leaning on God. Faith leads to works, which in turn increases our faith, which allows God to do more work in us, and so on until a final act of faith through which we are entirely pure (since, biblically, faith and works are distinct but inseparable).

There is the work of man: to have faith in God and to do all that is necessary to keep that trust and reliance alive (not much more of a "work" than stretching out our hands). There is the work of God: to save, to justify, to sanctify, to continually empower, and to judge our works on the last day (finally justify). When we have saving faith in Christ and nothing else, on the basis of Christ's work we are brought into God's family by an act of sheer grace. There is a relative and an actual change at that moment. Our job is to continue to hold out our hands to God in faith. The more faith we have, the more love will flow in and through us as God gets control of us. The more we turn our sails, the more we move forward in love of God and neighbor. Bible + (interpreted by) Wesley = truth.

Gods regenerates, God saves, God justifies. These are works of grace, not something our works contribute to. God works where we cannot work. We do not achieve nor merit any of these qualitatively distinct graces. God gives them, we receive them through faith (not through works, lest we be able to boast). Sanctification is not something we "work up" in our hearts, it's something we receive and continue to receive and walk in. It may take a lot of "effort" or "work" to keep this faith by which we are saved alive, but that's another matter.

Ephesians 2:8: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast."