God is the author of our salvation. There is nothing we can do on our own to gain it – not any amount of church attendance, not a lifetime of ‘good works’, not by praying to saints nor by the granting of indulgences. All the credit is due to God who secured our redemption by the blood of Jesus who willingly died for us on the cross.

We cannot even claim credit for ‘accepting’ Jesus for it is God who draws us to himself, and it is the Holy Spirit who guides and strengthens us from thereon. Just before he returned to his Father, after he had risen from the cross, Jesus said he would not abandon us and leave us on our own.

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” – (John 14:26 – English Standard Version).

The following excerpt is from The Pursuit of God by A W Tozer.

“Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which briefly stated means this, that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man.

We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.

“No man can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” (John 6:44 – English Standard Version), and it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand: “Thy right hand upholdeth me.”

“My soul clings to you; your right hand uphholds me.” (Psalm 63:8 – English Standard Version )”