Ephesians 2:4-5

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.”

Where it comes from

Paul has just spent three verses describing people with no pulse: dead in sin, following the crowd, following their appetites. Then come two words that turn the whole letter around. "But God." Everything before them is what we were. Everything after them is what God did.

What it means

The sentence never says we got better, tried harder or found our way back. It says we were dead, and God, out of mercy and love, made us alive. The grammar matters: God is the only one doing anything. That is why "But God" has become shorthand for every story that should have ended badly and didn't. The diagnosis was fatal. The intervention was His.