when one offers you a gift, you still have to reach out your hands to accept it from them, maybe putting down what you are already holding in order to do so.
Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
Yes, you do still have to reach for it, the difference is, some people reach to God, others reach to self.
The question is, are the ones reaching out to self correct in what they are reaching to? Or are those who are reaching to God?
The Calvinist says we must be always reaching to God. Is faith lacking reach to him. Is fruit lacking we reach to Him. Is faith lacking we reach to Him.
He is the object of our worship because we know we cant do anything apart from Him.
If God says come near and we are feeling some quicksand around our feet, we shouldn't sit and try and extricate ourselves (as this struggling only serves to bog you further down), rather, we should beg God to extricate us...
This world and our flesh, is like quicksand. We can fight and fight and fight and only find ourselves more and more entrenched, deeper and deeper the more we struggle.
We need a Savior... the Bible says we are dead in our sins, well, dead men can't grab anything.... So God sent us a Savior who would bring us to life so we could grab the faith He's throwing for our rescue.
The rope is a gift as much as is the Grace that brought it. That rope represents faith, in my little analogy here, so if we find ourselves awake and no longer dead, we must also ask for the faith be given us in truth, so that we can hang onto it and be saved.
Otherwise, we are still dead, mired down in the bog and only fooling ourselves.
Faith is what we hang onto in all things. Faith. And its a gift.