Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which, briefly stated, means that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man. Before a sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him. Imperfect it may be, but a true work nonetheless, and the secret cause of all desiring and seeking and praying which may follow. We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. ‘No man can come to me,' said our Lord, ‘except the Father which hath sent me draw him,' and it is by this prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him. All the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand: ‘Thy right hand upholdeth me.' In this divine ‘upholding' and human ‘following' there is no contradiction.
In describing the wonder of the new birth, Jesus said to Nicodemus, a religious man, "Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:7-8). The new birth is not initiated-and cannot be initiated-by man because unsaved man is spiritually dead in his sin (Eph. 2:1). Regeneration is the glorious work of the sovereign Spirit alone. Yet, having pursued us as believers, He now empowers us to bring forth spiritual fruit, but not without our cooperation and diligent application of truth to life (2 Peter 1:5-8). Having sought and found us, we must now seek hard after God.
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