Philippians 2:13

Philippians 2:13. for it is God which worketh in you. Thus only can your work have a beginning. The first movement comes from God. He bestows His quickening gift, and then you may improve what He has given by your earnest labour. So St. Peter (2 Peter 1:3-7) describes the groundwork of faith as the gift of God, to which, and in the strength of which, the struggling Christian may contribute grace after grace to the building up of the new man to the perfection of Christian love. And God's work is in the soul of man; the evidence that men desire to foster that working is shown to the world by outward actions, and so this working may be called their own.

both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Even the wish to serve God comes from Himself, is roused first by Him in the heart of man; and when He has so awakened the mind, He bestows the energy, the working power, so that the wish may have its fulfilment. Yet still it is left to men to use, or leave unused, that power; with them rests that co-operation in the work which is needful before their salvation can be worked out. And God's graces are bestowed because He willeth not the death of a sinner, but that all men should come to salvation. This is His good pleasure, and for the sake of its achievement. He is thus large in His bounty to men's souls.