The only way that we can make any favourable impression on God is if we are set free to serve him as we ought to, and that is made possible by his free gift of salvation in and through Jesus Christ. We have not asked for this gift and have done nothing to deserve it – it is a gift, after all, and not a reward for services rendered. We are incapable of wanting it, or even of understanding what it is, until we receive it, which is why the article says that God’s grace in Christ ‘prevents’ us, ‘prevent’ being used here in the older sense of ‘precede’. When God gets to work in our lives he
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