I Am Discovering God’s Grace in My Faithful Journey
Growing Closer to God through Prevenient Grace
The concept of prevenient grace, in simple terms, means that before I seek God, God must have already sought me out.
Prior to me, as a sinful individual, being able to conceive the right thoughts about God, there must have been an enlightening process happening within me.
It might not be perfect, but it’s a genuine work that fuels my subsequent desires, pursuits, and prayers.
I pursue God because He has initially planted an urge within me. As our Lord put it, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him,” and it’s this prevenient drawing that removes any credit from me for deciding to come to God.
The impulse to seek God originates from Him, but my part is to diligently follow after Him. All the while, I am securely in His hand, as the psalmist says, “Thy right hand upholdeth me.”
There’s no contradiction between this divine “upholding” and my human “following.” It all originates from God because, as von Hügel teaches, God always comes first.
However, in practical terms, where God’s preceding work meets my present response, I must actively pursue God. Positive reciprocation is necessary on my part if this hidden drawing from God is to lead to a real experience of the Divine.
In the language of personal emotion, I find this sentiment beautifully expressed in the Forty-second Psalm: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?”
It’s like a profound connection between the depths of my being and the longing for God, and those who truly yearn for Him will understand it.
Now, when it comes to the doctrine of justification by faith — a Biblical truth and a wonderful escape from lifeless legalism and futile self-effort — it has unfortunately been misunderstood by many in our time. It’s been twisted in a way that hinders people from truly knowing God.
The whole process of religious conversion has become mechanical and devoid of spirit. Faith can be exercised without any impact on one’s moral life and without stirring any deep affection for Christ within the believer. People are “saved,” but they’re not hungry or thirsty for God. In fact, they’re often taught to be content with very little.
Modern scientists have lost sight of God amidst the marvels of His creation, and we Christians are at risk of losing sight of God amidst the wonders of His Word. We seem to have forgotten that God is a Person, and just like any person, He can be cultivated and known.
Personalities inherently have the capacity to understand each other, but true understanding of one personality by another takes time and loving intellectual engagement. It’s only through extended and affectionate interaction that the full depths of both can be explored.
All human interactions, in varying degrees, reflect one personality responding to another, ranging from the brief encounters between people to the deepest, most intimate connections that the human soul can achieve.
If we’re talking about genuine religion, it essentially involves created personalities responding to the supreme Creating Personality, God. As Jesus said, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
I believe God is a Person, just as any of us. Within His vast nature, He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires, and even suffers. When He reveals Himself to us, He does so in a way that aligns with our understanding of personality.
He communicates with us through our thoughts, our decisions, and our emotions. The continuous and unobstructed exchange of love and thoughts between God and the soul of a redeemed person lies at the core of New Testament faith.
This interaction between God and the soul is something I consciously experience on a personal level. It’s a personal connection, not dependent on the collective body of believers, but something that an individual can know.
It’s a conscious experience, not hidden below the surface of awareness (as some might believe infant baptism to be), but something that comes into the light of consciousness, where a person can “know” it just like any other life experience.
You and I, aside from our sins, share a likeness to God on a smaller scale. Created in His image, we possess the ability to know Him, lacking only the power to do so when we are in sin. When the Spirit brings us to life through regeneration, our entire being recognizes its connection to God with joyous affirmation.
This is the divine birth, without which we cannot truly understand the Kingdom of God. But, I must emphasize, this isn’t the end; it’s just the beginning. Now commences the wondrous pursuit, as our hearts enthusiastically explore the boundless riches of the Triune God.
This is where we start, but where we conclude, no one has yet discovered, for within the mysterious depths of the Triune God, there is neither limit nor end.