For it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Phil 2:13
We cannot usually distinguish between the influence of the Spirit, and operations of our own faculties, nor is it necessary we should. We cannot tell where man ends, and God begins, nor ought we to trouble or perplex ourselves about the matter. Hence, instead of waiting for any sensible or ascertainable impulse of the Spirit, either before we begin to attend to religion at all, or before we engage in any particular exercise of it, we are immediately to engage all our faculties, and at the same time, engage them in a spirit of entire dependence upon God. We are to fix our attention, to deliberate, to purpose, to resolve, to choose, just as we should in worldly matters; but we are to do all this with a feeling of reliance, and in the very spirit of prayer.
We must obey, not only believing that it is our duty to obey, but believing also that we shall be assisted. Hence the very essence of religion seems to be a spirit of vigorous exertion, blended with a spirit of unlimited dependence and earnest prayer. An illustration may be borrowed, as recorded in Matthew 12:10-13, from the case of the man with the withered arm. Our Lord commanded him to stretch forth his hand, and he did not say, Lord, I cannot, it is dead; but, relying on His power who gave the injunction, and believing that the command implied a promise of help, if he were willing to receive it, he stretched it forth; that is, he willed to do it, and he was able. So it must be with the sinner; he is commanded to repent and believe, and he is not to say, I cannot, for I am dead in sin; but he is to believe in the promised aid of grace, and to obey in a dependence upon Him, who worketh in men to will and to do.
John Angell James. The Anxious Inquirer.
