A Puppet On A String?

I serve a Sovereign God with a glad heart. 

The purpose of God cannot be dependent on the proclivity of man - aka “free moral agency.”  That is an affront to a Sovereign Lord. “The Sovereign LORD has sworn by his own name, and this is what he, the LORD God of Heaven's Armies, says:” Amos 6:8a NLT And “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?” Romans 9:20 KJV

If I be compelled, then I am compelled by the love of God - which loves not on the basis of the worth of its object. It loves just because it is love.  “For the love of Christ constraineth (compels) us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:” 2 Corinthians 5:14 KJV

I believe that all have come short of the Glory of God - including me - and that the whole world lies within the realm of the evil one. One iota short of the Glory of God is total deprivation. If we stand not in need of a Total Savior, then we stand in need of not one at all. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” Romans 3:23

I believe that I had nothing with which to commend myself to God - not even a noble will. Only in the providence of God can anyone believe and be saved. “and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.” Acts 13:48

I believe that according to His infinite wisdom He has grafted me onto the tree of life of which His Beloved Son is the trunk - for all that the Father has given to the Son shall come and none shall be cast out. ‘to fulfill the word which He spoke, "Of those whom You have given Me I lost not one."’ John 18:9

I believe that his calling of me - although I may have resisted for a while - was irresistible and thus irrevocable. “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” Romans 11:29 And that we cannot cry “Abba Father!” without the initiation of the Holy Spirit who has been given as an earnest - “who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory.” Ephesians 1:14 

I believe that I am able to persevere as a result of His perseverance on my behalf and that He is unswervingly able to complete that which He began in me to the praise of His glory. “He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 1:8 NIV 

We cannot believe in the grace of our Sovereign God and in personal sovereignty at the same time.  R.C. Sproul: “Most Christian's salute the sovereignty of God but believe in the sovereignty of man.” And I would add that they do this by way of practice. “Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?” James 3:11 

For I believe that the Son has set me free - “into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Romans 8:21 The whole world lies in the power of the evil one having been led astray by him and it is only by His a priori action that I have been delivered from the domain of darkness and have been translated into the kingdom of His dear Son.

Do these convictions make me an automaton, a robot - a puppet on a string?  Let no man be my judge. “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” Romans 9:16 ESV

Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law's demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Augustus Toplady - 1763