This Is The Essence Of God's Sovereignty;

Our First Problem Is That Our Attitude Towards Sin Is More Self-centred Than God-centred. We Are More Concerned About Our Own "victory" Over Sin Than We Are About The Fact That Our Sin Grieve The Heart Of God. We Cannot Tolerate Failure In Our Struggle With Sin Chiefly Because We Are Success Oriented, Not Because We Know It Is Offensive To God.

To Derive The Fullest Comfort And Encouragement From Romans 8:28 We Must Realize That God Is At Work In A Proactive, Not Reactive, Fashion. That Is, God Does Not Just Respond To An Adversity In Our Lives To Make The Best Of A Bad Situation. He Knows Before He Initiates Or Permits The Adversity Exactly How He Will Use It For Our Good.

We Are 100 Percent Responsible For The Pursuit Of Holiness, But At The Same Time We Are 100 Percent Dependent Upon The Holy Spirit To Enable Us In That Pursuit. The Pursuit Of Holiness Is Not A Pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps Approach To The Christian Life.

Truth Is We Must Plant And We Must Water If We Are To Make Progress With Our Children In Holiness But Only The Holy Spirit Can Change Our Children More And More Into The Likeness Of Jesus. Our Problem Is We Tend To Depend Upon Our Planting And Watering Rather Than The Lord.

Sanctification Is The Work Of The Holy Spirit In Us Whereby Our Inner Being Is Progressively Changed, Freeing Us More And More From Sinful Traits And Developing Within Us Over Time The Virtues Of Christlike Character.