Compelling Love

God calls people into His purpose, and empowers them with His grace.
Salvation is from Him alone, yet He repays each according to his works,
as David describes in Psalm 62:

¹ I am at rest in God alone; my salvation comes from Him.
² He alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I will never be shaken.

⁸ Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is our refuge. Selah

¹¹ God has spoken once; I have heard this twice: strength belongs to God,
¹² and faithful love belongs to You, Lord. For You repay each according to his works.

Yeshua (Jesus) describes God’s supreme gift of salvation in John 3:

¹⁴ Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵ so that everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life.
¹⁶ “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.
¹⁷ For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

He saves us according to His purpose and grace, not according to what we have done.  Yet as believers we also have a holy calling in Messiah Yeshua, Christ Jesus,
as Shaul (Paul) explains in 2 Timothy 1:

⁹ He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.
¹⁰ This has now been made evident through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

Shaul (Paul) writes in Ephesians 2 that we were all dead in our trespasses and sins, but God in His mercy has made believers alive with the Messiah.

¹ And you were dead in your trespasses and sins
² in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient.
³ We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.
⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us,
⁵ made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!
⁶ Together with Christ Jesus He also raised us up and seated us in the heavens,
⁷ so that in the coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace through His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
⁸ For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—
⁹ not from works, so that no one can boast.
¹⁰ For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.

The Messiah also came to tear down the dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles in the flesh, to create “one new man from the two”, “built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit”:

¹¹ So then, remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh—called “the uncircumcised” by those called “the circumcised,” which is done in the flesh by human hands.
¹² At that time you were without the Messiah, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
¹³ But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of the Messiah.
¹⁴ For He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In His flesh, ¹⁵ He made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that He might create in Himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace.
¹⁶ He did this so that He might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross and put the hostility to death by it.
¹⁷ When the Messiah came, He proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.
¹⁸ For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.
¹⁹ So then you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household,
²⁰ built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone.
²¹ The whole building, being put together by Him, grows into a holy sanctuary in the Lord.
²² You also are being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.

While believers are “saved by grace through faith” (Ephesians 2:8), “we must never get tired of doing good” as Shaul (Paul) explains in Galatians 6:

⁷ Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows he will also reap,
⁸ because the one who sows to his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.
⁹ So we must not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up.
¹⁰ Therefore, as we have opportunity, we must work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.

Believers are given “a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”.  Along with the new birth we have received a calling to be holy in all our conduct.  Shimon Kefa (Peter) declares in 1 Peter 1 that through Him we “are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God”:

³ Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
According to His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
⁴ and into an inheritance that is imperishable, uncorrupted, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.
⁵ You are being protected by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

¹³ Therefore, with your minds ready for action, be serious and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
¹⁴ As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance.
¹⁵ But as the One who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct;
¹⁶ for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.

²⁰ He was chosen before the foundation of the world but was revealed at the end of the times for you
²¹ who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

 David Krause, dhkrause@neteze.com, https://compellinglove.net/

(Bible Quotations are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible.)