Lam 3:21-23; I recall this to my mind, and it gives me confidence. Because The Lord's mercy never fails; His grace provisions never cease, they are renewed every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.
In our study of the doctrine of the winner believer. Heb 12:2; Rev 2:7; We noted that winner believers are the unknown, unsung heroes of history. 2Cor 6:9;
The winners are those who are not considered by the world to be wise or noble 1Cor 1:26-29; but they are the crisis personalities who stand in the spiritual gap and preserve the nation during the course of human history. Ezek 22:30-31; because they glorify God by learning how to exploit God's grace system to the maximum. 2Pet 3:18;
Since the winner exploits God's grace system to the maximum we have taken up a study of grace in the context of exploiting it and becoming a winner.
God's means of blessing the believer is accomplished by a series of grace imputations that occur in both time and in eternity.
The divine decree contains the historical reality of every human being's level of attainment in this grace plan.
The existence of human free will means that some attain these imputations and some do not. Free will is always a source of inequality
It is only by means of the fact that human volition is free that good decisions can be blessed and poor ones punished. Winners consistently blessed because they consistently make good decisions in God's grace system.
The extent to which any individual advances is determined by his own free will but God knew how far that believer would advance in eternity past.
God knew some would reject God's grace provision of Jesus Christ for salvation, others would believe in Jesus Christ but remain spiritually immature because they would be distracted from God's Word of truth, and that a few would persist in God's Word of truth and learn it and as a result they would exploit the system and advance to spiritual maturity to God's glory.
Those who make the advance all the way through God's system are blessed to the maximum in both time and eternity because they bring maximum glorification to God but the reality is that for many the potential that exists in God's plan exceeds what becomes reality in their lives.
Every human being who ever lives has the potential for salvation through a free-will choice to believe in Christ.
Every believer has the potential to execute God's plan through free-will response to the teachings of God's Word of truth.
Those that do receive the maximum conveyance of God's blessings to God's glory because God designed the plan and provided all of the resources that were necessary to make it possible. The winner simply learns how to exploit God's provision and chooses to persist regardless of opposition.
Last time we concluded our study of common grace where God the Holy Spirit enables the unbeliever to understand the issues of the Gospel John 16:8-11;
We noted that the potential or hope of the unbeliever is expressed in the first equation of grace:
X [ HL + AOS = P1 + D = H1 ] +
HL: Imputation of human life at physical birth.
AOS: Imputation of Adam's original sin to the sinful nature.
P1: Potential for salvation.
D: The Gospel that is the pertinent doctrine in this case.
H1: Confident expectation of eternal life (Hope)
+ The reality of the imputation of eternal life at salvation
This brings us to the doctrine of efficacious Grace where God the Holy Spirit takes the non-meritorious faith of the spiritually dead unbeliever and makes it alive or effective for salvation when the Gospel message is understood and believed.
Efficacious grace is the technical theological term for the work of God the Holy Spirit that is related to faith in Christ at the point of salvation.
This doctrine could t be classified as the doctrine of effectual faith, since the faith of the spiritually dead person would be ineffective without help from God the Holy Spirit.
Efficacious grace is the effective faith that God the Holy Spirit provides to take the spiritually dead unbeliever's faith in Christ and make it effective for eternal salvation.
Eph 1:13;a "In whom (Jesus Christ) you also, when you heard the message of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, in whom also, you believed...."
"Efficacious" means the power to produce the desired effect. So God the Holy Spirit takes our faith in Christ and produces the desired effect: salvation. Eph 2:8, "For you have been saved by grace."
"Effectual" is what is powerful enough to produce an intended effect: In this case it is "through faith." or by means of believing the doctrine. Believing the doctrine is our part: we believe. Efficacious is used with God's grace; effectual is used with our faith. We supply the non-meritorious volition; God supplies everything else that is needed for salvation to occur.