It is to be feared, brethren, beloved of God, lest man exalt himself before God, saying that he himself has done what God has promised (On the Predestination of the Saints, ch. 2).

Indeed, God promises us faith and endurance as His gift—how can we say that we lack faith and endurance? We can't have it at all!

Therefore faithful is He who calls you, who will also do these things (1 Thess. 5:24). The guarantor of the believer's good will is not himself, but the grace of God, which

He precedes the unwilling one to desire; He accompanies the one who wills, so that he desires not in vain (Bl. Augustine, Enchiridion, ch. 32).

The work of our free will is that we grow in faith; our free will is the work of God's grace. The believer does not lie down on the couch, but "exerts all his diligence" (2 Peter 1:5) to his spiritual growth; at the same time, he gratefully acknowledges that it is God who awakens in him both the desire and the ability to try.—Phil. 2:13. Thus, by the grace of God, a Christian freely and willingly strives for his spiritual growth. This, however, does not mean that it is always easy for a Christian. Grace does not remove difficulties from the believer's path, but builds in him the will to overcome them. Let me give you an example. A climber freely and willingly strives for the top, but this does not mean that the ascent is easy and effortless.

It would be a complete misunderstanding (or even a sly unwillingness to understand) the teaching of the Apostles on grace to try to use it to justify one's own laziness: if a person does something good, it is a gift of God (Council of Arabia, canon 9); if he refuses to create, it is his own sin (James 4:17). Paul says the same thing: he attributes all his labors to the grace of God (1 Cor. 15:10), but at the same time he admits that he himself will be guilty if he does not preach the gospel (1 Cor. 9:16).

The Lordship of Christ

So we are redeemed by the Lord and brought into His Kingdom. This kingdom will be manifestly revealed in the future, but it is a pre-existing reality of Christ's Lordship in the lives of believers. To belong to the kingdom is to have Jesus Christ as your King. Christ is the absolute and unconditional Lord in the life of a Christian:

For none of us lives for himself, and no one dies for himself; but if we live, we live for the Lord; whether we die, we die to the Lord: and therefore, whether we live or die, we are always the Lord's. For for this reason Christ died, and rose again, and came to life, that He might have dominion over both the dead and the living (Romans 14:7-9).

The Lord says: Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. He who saves his life will lose it; but he who loses his life for my sake will save it (Matt. 10:37-39).

These harsh and confusing words of the Lord say the same thing: no values and attachments, including attachment to one's own life, can be more important than following Christ. Incidentally, these and similar texts expose any attempt to separate the "historical Jesus" from the "dogmatic Christ." Jesus claims a dominion equal to that of God; He declares that man's eternal salvation depends on his willingness to lose his soul (life) for Him, Jesus Christ (v. 39). Of course, this does not mean that your family will necessarily expel you and in the end you will be painfully killed; it is very likely that this will not happen, but the Lord considers it necessary to warn at once that this may happen. Earthly commanders, inviting people to join their army, speak of victories, glory and rewards, and are silent about toils, deprivations, painful wounds and death; The Lord also promises a great reward, but He does not hide what it may cost. More often, however, it is not a question of dying under torture for the name of Christ, but of daily obedience, of "faithfulness in small things"—of the not at all dramatic everyday sacrifices that following His commandments may require of us.

To confess Jesus Christ as Lord (Romans 10:9) means to recognize one's unconditional obligation to obey Him. The Bible describes a Christian as "a servant of Christ (of God)" (e.g., 1 Pet. 2:16; 2 Pet. 1:1; Rom. 6:22, 1 Cor. 6:22, Eph. 6:6; Rev. 7:3, etc.) The Lord clearly says that one should not try to "outwit" Him by claiming His promises and at the same time ignoring His commandments: "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord! Lord!" will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord! God! Have we not prophesied in Thy name? and did they not cast out demons in Thy name? And then I will declare to them, I have never known you; depart from me, you workers of iniquity.

Whosoever therefore heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, who built his house upon a rock. And the rain fell, and the rivers overflowed, and the winds blew, and rushed upon that house, and it did not fall, because it was founded on a rock. But whosoever heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand. And the rain fell, and the rivers overflowed, and the winds blew, and fell upon that house; and he fell, and his fall was great (Matt. 7:21-27).