Transforming Grace

I've been reading this book lately called Transforming Grace by Jerry Bridges. It's an excellent read so far with the basic premise being that God's grace is completely unmerited and it is nothing we can earn. That's a difficult concept to take in sometimes. To think that I have absolutely NO control whatsoever on my eternal state. Obviously, I ask God to save me from an eternity apart from Him, but I'm told that I was dead to sin and it was Him who made me alive. So, my very salvation is completely unmerited. It's mind boggling to grasp this because I like to think I control most things in my life. However, God controls this.

Then, I was reading in Zechariah and in chapter 3, Zechariah sees Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan was standing beside him ready to accuse him. Then, the Lord rebukes Satan and He has the filthy garments that Joshua was wearing taken off of him. In verse 4 the Lord says, "...See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes." Imagine that: You're standing before God and you know you've broken His laws that separate you. Then, you get before Him and Satan busts out a list a mile long of your worst sins and he's ready to start reading them off before God to get you in the worst kind of trouble. Then, God rebukes HIM instead and says, "this is MY child and I've made him clean!" It's like a giant boo-yah, in your face to your accuser. So, even though I don't understand how salvation is outside of my controlling sometimes, I read verses like that and become a little more excited that it's all God and not me. After all, if I was standing before God and all I had in my name was a few of my good works compared to the list that Satan was holding, I might not be in too great a standing with God...