To say you did this, or you did that and then God saved you, is to decry grace as the only means to salvation. To say that you were saved after performing some act of obedience, is to disavow any connection to grace. Those who insist that their works are due to God’s grace, and by this combination a man is saved, fail to understand the most basic of all Scriptural principles which is “…by grace are ye saved…not of yourselves…not of works…” (Eph. 2:8,9). Works of any kind be they attributed to a man, or to the grace of God, DO NOT SAVE! If you believe God saved you after some work of your own, you are without grace, you have not God. To add anything to grace such as a work of man’s is to imply a condition for salvation that can only be met by a man doing. Fulfilling any condition for salvation with what a man does is to cancel out the fact that salvation is an unmeritable free gift. This is why if you believe that salvation comes after you have done something, which is to say, after you believe you have fully complied with some pre-existing condition, then what you have is a phony meritable salvation. The only thing those who believe they can work for their salvation will receive, the only thing they are deserving of, is a salvation that simply does not save. The only thing you can work for is that which will not save you. True salvation is not only unmerited it is completely unmeritable. True salvation is by grace alone. True salvation is a gift from God. You cannot do anything to get it, you cannot do anything to keep it, for it is totally by the grace of God.https://www.godsonlygospel.com/by-grace-alone-35
