1And you were dead in the trespasses and sins…4But God…5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast.–Ephesians 2 (abbreviated and with emphasis)
WHAT STATE WERE YOU IN BEFORE JESUS SAVED YOU? You were spiritually dead with no hope at all to save yourself. If salvation was a hospital, you weren’t in the ICU with some hope, but rather in the morgue.
HOW IS SALVATION PICTURED? God bringing a spiritually dead person back to life. The choice is God’s and it is not based upon your good works. Salvation is God’s gift to a hopeless, spiritually dead person. God makes your faith in Jesus possible, for you will always naturally choose otherwise and try to depend upon your own works to save you.
If you are saved, none of it is by your own doing. You were chosen before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4) and you are saved by God’s gift of grace in response to the faith he made possible in you.
Our natural state is to be spiritually dead in the morgue. God chose to make us alive in Christ and give us His gift of grace.
HOW IS GOD LEADING YOUR RIGHT NOW TO RESPOND?–JMB
Joel M Bradshaw 
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