“Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling” (2 Timothy 1:9)  

The apostle uses the perfect tense and says, "Who has saved us." Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are saved. They’re not considered tentatively saved, or hopefully saved, or ultimately to be saved, but they’re already, saved. Salvation isn’t a blessing to be only sung about in Heaven, but a matter to be obtained, received, promised, and enjoyed now. The Christian is perfectly saved in God's purpose; God has ordained him unto salvation, and that purpose is complete. The price has been paid for him: “It is finished” was the cry of our Savior just before He died. 

 The believer is also perfectly saved in His relationship with Christ, for as he fell in Adam, so he lives in Christ. This complete salvation is accompanied by a holy calling. Those whom the Savior saved upon the cross, are called by the power of God the Holy Spirit unto holiness: they leave their sins; they endeavor to be like Christ; they choose holiness, not out of any compulsion, but from the desire of the new nature, which leads them to rejoice in holiness just as naturally as before they delighted in sin. 

 God didn’t choose them, or call them because they were holy, but He called them that they might be holy, and holiness is the beauty produced by His workmanship in them. The excellencies which we see in a saint are as much the work of God as the atonement itself. Thus, is displayed very sweetly, the fulness of the grace of God. Salvation must be of grace, because the Lord is the Author of it: and what motive but grace could move Him to save the guilty? Salvation must be of grace, because the Lord works in such a manner that our own righteousness is forever excluded. Such is the believer's privilege - a present salvation; such is the evidence that he is called to - a holy life. 

 “It is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12). “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5).