Salvation is the work of God. He alone brings dead souls to life. He alone keeps those souls alive. He is both Alpha and Omega. Salvation is of the Lord!

Listen to me carefully. If I pray, God is the one who makes me prayerful. If I have any spiritual gifts, they are his gifts to me. If I keep walking faithfully day after day, it is because he holds me up with his own hand. I contribute nothing to my own preservation except what God first works in me. Every good thing in me comes from the Lord alone.

Where I sin? That's all mine. But where I do what is right? That is God's doing, wholly and completely.

Have I fought off a spiritual attack? The Lord's strength nerved my arm! Do I live a holy life before others? It is not I, but Christ living in me. Am I being made holy? I did not cleanse myself—God's Holy Spirit sanctifies me. Am I losing my grip on the world? God's discipline is weaning me, and he is turning even that pain into something good. Am I growing in understanding? The Great Instructor teaches me. Every jewel in my spiritual treasury was fashioned by heaven's art.

I find everything I need in God. But in myself? Nothing but sin and misery. He only is my rock and my salvation.

Do I feast on God's Word? That Word would be tasteless to me unless the Lord himself made it food for my soul and helped me digest it. Do I live on the manna that comes down from heaven? What is that manna but Jesus Christ himself incarnate, whose body and blood I eat and drink? Am I getting stronger day by day? Where does this strength come from? My help comes from heaven's hills. Without Jesus I can do nothing. Nothing!

A branch cannot produce fruit unless it stays connected to the vine. Neither can I, unless I stay connected to him.

What Jonah learned in the great deep, let me learn this morning in my quiet place: Salvation is of the Lord!