'PREVENIENT GRACE'

Prior to our awareness of God, God prepares us to turn to HIM.

________________________

Jesus said, "No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me." (John 6:44; see also Jeremiah 31:3; 1 John 4:10) 

These, and other scriptures, are clear in demonstrating that God cultivates our hearts long before we have any inclination to turn to God. 

Even amidst the tattered shreds of our sinful existence, as fallen creatures totally incapable of even desiring to turn to God, the Holy Spirit creates within us a desire for a relationship with God. 

This gracious activity takes place well ahead of our consciousness of it; indeed, we often believe that our returning to God is something that we cook up within our own souls. 

Quite the contrary, scripture makes it plain that it is God's gift of grace which, initially, sparks are thought, interest, and desire to come to God:

Jeremiah 1:5 (ESV): "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you..."

Jeremiah 31:3 (KJV): "...I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee."

Ezekiel 34:11, 16 (ESV): "For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out...I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak..."

Luke 19:10: "For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

John 6:44: "No man can come unto me, unless the Father who hath sent me, draw him..."

John 12:32: "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.”

Romans 2:4: "...the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance..."

Ephesians 1:13 (NASB): "In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise..."

Philippians 2:12-13: "...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God that worketh in you according to his good pleasure, both to will and to do."

1 John 4:19: "We love him, because he first loved us."

Titus 2:11: "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men."