When it comes to our growth as Christians, there are two related truths we need to understand and keep constantly in mind: Advance in the Christian life, which is to say advance in our relationship with God and advance in being like God, comes by a combination of God’s work and our work.
Where justification is a work of God alone, sanctification is a work in which we cooperate. God, by his Spirit, initiates and sustains that work, but we are called to respond to it and cooperate with it. As Donald Whitney says, “Advance in the Christian life comes not by the work of the Holy Spirit alone, nor by our work alone, but by our responding to and cooperating with the grace the Holy Spirit initiates and sustains.”
Any relationship depends upon each person pursuing the other, and what’s true of our friendships with other human beings is equally true of our friendship with this Divine Being. While God genuinely pursues us, we must also pursue him. Even as he begins the relationship, we must foster it. Even as he reaches out toward us, we must reach toward him. And so I ask: Have you reached out to God today through prayer? Have you listened to his voice through the Scriptures? What are you doing to foster this precious relationship?
