“Salvation is of the Lord" (Jonah 2:9)  

Salvation is the exclusive work of God. He’s the only One who can change sinners into saints, and the only One who can keeps saints from backsliding. “Even when we were dead in trespasses, (God) made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) ... and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:5-10). 

 Saints cooperate with the indwelling Holy Spirit. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). Saints know without God they can do nothing. If you’re prayerful, it’s because God makes you prayerful; if you have a productive life, it’s because He enables you to be productive. You don’t do anything towards your personal holiness apart from what God does in you. 

 When you sin, that’s your sin, but when you obtain from sin, that’s because of God gives you the grace to not sin. The same grace that made you a saint, keeps you growing spiritually. “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18). “Dear Jesus, what Jonah re-learned in the belly of the whale, let me remember this morning: "Salvation is of the Lord."