"Required to live the life they have been given"

Paul does not perfect the efficacy of grace as a form of monergism, because it is clear for him from the baptismal event that the very life in which the believer acts and decides is a life sourced, established, and upheld by Christ (a “life from the dead”). Within this frame, and on this basis, plenty of statements can be made regarding believers as responsible agents who are required to present their bodies in one direction rather than another. Christian obedience is thus vital, but only ever in a responsive mode: it arises in conjunction with faith and gratitude as the answer to a prior gift. The gift is entirely undeserved but strongly obliging: it creates agents who are newly alive, required to live the life they have been given.—J. M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 518

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I really like that: "Required to live the life they have been given." That sums up discipleship and Christianity, doesn't it?
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