Grace

Tom Barnard

hich grace do you embrace, “prevenient grace” or “irresistible grace?” My answer amuses my Wesleyan friends and my Calvinist friends alike. When pushed, I answer, “Both.” Few like that response. They prefer that I draw a line and commit to one or the other. But if I were to reflect honestly on my personal spiritual pilgrimage, I would have to say that in my lifetime I have experienced God in both dimensions. There were times—especially when I was young—that I had no deep longing to seek God. Had God not pursued me “preveniently” and drawn me to Him, I would not have sought Him on my own. At other times, I realized that I was incapable of being “out of the fold” very long—God was not going to let me remain a prodigal! Grace made it happen.

Recently I have been reading the writings of Alden Wilson (A.W.) Tozer, who at the time of his untimely death in 1963 was the distinguished minister of the Avenue Road Church in Toronto. He was one of those rare preachers that became as widely known for his essays on spiritual formation as he was for his expositions from scripture. In his essay, “Following Hard After God,” A.W. Tozer argued, “We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.” He quoted the words of Jesus, who said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” (John 6:44 NIV) Tozer continued, “The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after him; and all the time we are pursuing Him we are already in his hand.” It may have been this spiritual drawing that led David to say in Psalm 63:6-8 (TLB),

“I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night. I think how

 much you have helped me; I sing for joy in the shadow of your protecting wings.

I follow close behind you; your strong right hand holds me securely.”

There you have it—David felt secure in the hand of God, and because of that, he was able to follow close behind Him. Tozer said, “On our part there must be positive reciprocation if this secret drawing of God is to eventuate in identifiable experience of the Divine.”

Is the “divine end” fulfilled when God calls and we answer? Not completely. Our saying “yes” to God in Christ is a starting point, not a finish line. John understood this truth. He remembered the words Jesus prayed to his Father (John 17:3 TLB):

“And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God,

and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.”

Tozer continued:

     “The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration, our whole being senses its

     kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we

     cannot see the Kingdom of God. It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the

     glorious pursuit, the heart’s happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead. That is

     where we begin, I say, but where we stop no man has yet discovered, for there is in the awful

     and mysterious depths of the Triune God neither limit nor end.”   

The Apostle Paul expressed what it meant to follow hard after God when he wrote to the Church,

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship

 of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow,

 to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:10-11 NIV)

Perhaps that is what Jesus meant when he said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” And what is it that draws us to follow hard after God? Grace!