"Salvation belongs to the Lord!"
Jonah 2:9

Can Scripture be any more blatant? Salvation does not belong to us. It is not ours to use however we would chose. It is the Lord's. If it was ours, we could do with it whatever suited us, which would only be destructive in nature. We would ruin the work of Christ as a whole if salvation were ours.

Salvation is a gift, but it is not a gift that is given in one state and then used by the recipient and fashioned into their own thing. It is like a transplant. The donor gives of their own body, the recipient only gladly receives. They have no way of cutting themselves open and changing the function of their new kidney. The Bible even clearly shows us this picture of transplantation in Ezekiel 36:26, "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." This is salvation. And it belongs to the Lord. He makes it clear in the first few verses of the chapter by saying "It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name..."

The whole process of salvation humbly submits to this statement. "And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified." Every step is for the sake of his holy name. The grace he gives to live each day flows from his possession of salvation.

If salvation did not belong to the Lord, then we could have no hope in our existence. "No one seeks the Lord, no not one." We would never have experienced grace had he not been in control of the grace that saved us. "To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory..." The assurance of our ultimate salvation would be lost also had we not a God who is Lord over all things, including salvation.

May it not take us, as it did Jonah, falling into the darkness and depth of a great beast, whether figurative or literal, to realize that our hope is in God for "salvation belongs" to him!