Special moments can change the course of our lives. Looking back across the years of my spiritual journey with Christ, my most unforgettable moment happened when I was eight years old, on the second Sunday morning in November. I was at church where my parents always took the entire family on Sundays and any other night of the week that featured worship services. That November Sunday morning was the last day of revival services. I no longer remember the name of the evangelist or his message.

One prominent Christian ethicist is fond of saying that the primary task of the Church is to “be the Church in contrast to the world.” What he means by this is that our witness as the Church begins with authentically proclaiming and living out the radical new kingdom that God has introduced through the life and work of Jesus Christ.

By bearing witness to the unique ways of Jesus, we present a clear contrast between the ways of “the world” and the ways of God . . . this contrast is actually the difference between life and death.

My wife, Debbie, gave her life to Christ on the second Sunday of November in 1988. She had just graduated with a degree in communications, was working an exciting new television job in Seattle, and was preparing to marry her college boyfriend. For a 22-year-old, the pieces of life were falling into place quite nicely. Yet something was still missing.

God’s grace, and only this grace, can offer salvation to humanity. “So God created mankind in his own image…male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Humankind disobeyed and corrupted their original relationship with God. In our fallen state, we can do nothing by ourselves to recover this image and our original relationship with our Creator. No effort we make can restore the image of God in us. Only grace can restore us to a new relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Everything begins and ends with grace.

Is “Prevenient Grace” Biblical?

The task of establishing the idea of “prevenient grace” from a New Testament perspective may be challenging because the term itself does not appear in the New Testament or in the whole Bible for that matter. The term is theological and presents a Wesleyan understanding of God’s grace that goes before, enabling (but not forcing) sinners to respond to faith. In other words, while Christians generally believe in God’s initiative of grace, Wesley opposes the idea that prevenient grace irresistibly brings a person to faith in Christ.

What is God like? Countless books on this subject line library shelves, written by scholars in multiple languages from diverse cultures around the world. Speculation abounds with possible answers. Jesus Christ answered that question plainly for all to understand during His earthly ministry. He often spoke in parables: stories with word pictures that describe spiritual truths in practical ways. One of my favorite parables, offering a word-picture peek into divine realities, is found in Luke 15:3-7.

“God is on the Move” is the name of a song, yes, but for my wife, Terri, and me, it became an anthem. As the lead pastor at Connect Church in a small community of Northern Oklahoma, I gladly tell this story.

On July 11, 1999, my wife and I moved to Ponca City, Oklahoma. We were both only a few years out of college. This was my first senior pastor assignment, and I was excited. I preached my first sermon to 20 people who might have been at least two decades older than Terri and me.

My thought was, “Wow! It’s empty out there.”