that seek where God or the meaning of life might be found, and looks for answers based on reason and experience. From Genesis 3:9, the Bible is a story of God asking human beings, “Where are you?” — seeking them out for a purpose greater than they can conceive.
The Lord God sought out Noah (he was the one staring at the skies for a rainstorm). The Lord sought out the pagan Abram and called him to become a blessing for all the nations of the world by worshipping the one God alone. Moses was looking for sheep when the Lord found him and spoke from the burning bush. The apostles were mending nets, or following John the Baptist, or caring for a tax collector’s booth when the Lord Jesus called each of them from private business to God’s mission. God takes the initiative with human beings, and asks “Where are you?” in order to draw them to himself.
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Furthermore, as with the case of Adam and Eve hiding in the bushes, he calls them while they are still sinners and does not wait until they are perfect: “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly…. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:6, 8).
The fisherman Simon Peter recognized this reality when, after the greatest catch of his career, he knelt before Jesus and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Lk 5:8). Many people are tempted to think that they must make themselves perfect, holy, and good before God will accept them. However, the biblical history points out that salvation is always offered at God’s initiative to undeserving sinners. For that reason, Jesus said to some Pharisees who were offended that he sat at table fellowship with sinners: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick…. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mt 9:12, 13).
Love of Israel
The Lord made clear to the people of Israel that his love for them was prior to their love for him.
Stop here and read Deuteronomy 7:7 and Isaiah 63:9 in your own Bible.
Not only did the Lord declare his love for Israel before they chose to love him, but he also made it clear that they did not deserve his love; his choice of Israel was undeserved and yet filled with his gracious devotion and concern for them. He would love and guide them as a father does his small children.
The Lord declared this while the Israelites were turning away from him to worship Baal, Asherah, and the other Canaanite gods that personified the mere forces of nature, a nature he had created. Yet he continued to love Israel and guide it through a salvation history that culminated with the mission of God the Son to redeem Israel first and then the whole world.
Stop here and read Hosea 11:1-4 in your own Bible.
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The New Testament
The New Testament continues the same message that God initiates the saving relationship with people. As Jesus gave his first instruction on the Eucharist, he told the crowd of disciples, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn 6:44). Later, the Lord Jesus told his eleven apostles at the Last Supper, “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (Jn 15:16), which he follows with the command, “This I command you, to love one another” (Jn 15:17). St. John, one of those present at the Last Supper, wrote, “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4:10), followed by the great truth that “We love, because he first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). Like St. John, we can only marvel at this tremendous and unearned gift: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 Jn 3:1).
Stop here and read Acts 9:1-22, 22:4-16, 26:9-20 in your own Bible.
Paul, an Apostle by Grace
St. Paul, whose conversion from being a persecutor of the Church and therefore of Jesus Christ himself, knew that his call to be an apostle was an act of God’s undeserved grace when he wrote to the Galatians, “But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles” (Gal 1:15).
Investigate
“Unworthiness”
Read the following passages and note where St. Paul recognizes his unworthiness to be an apostle.
| PASSAGE | NOTES |
| 1 Corinthians 15: 9 | |
| Ephesians 3:7-8 | |
| 1 Timothy 1:12-17 |
Note also how he wonders at the conversion and redemption of all Christians in Romans 8:29-32.
“Let there be Light”
A gaze into the amazing night sky shows the vastness of space and stirs up wonder at God, who made all of space and is infinitely more vast than the universe he created with a word, “Let there be light” (Gen 1:3), a light that exploded in a “big bang” and brought forth the orderly universe where we live. Such is the Lord God, who is “mindful” enough of man to care for each person and save all who would accept him as Creator and Savior!
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God’s Grace
Read the following passages and take notes on how justification and the salvation of sinners are given by God’s freely offered grace.
| PASSAGE | NOTES |
| Romans 3:24 | |
| Romans 6:23 | |
| Ephesians 2:4-7 | |
| 2 Thessalonians 2:16 | |
| 2 Timothy 1:8-9 |
Consider
Why Is Saving Grace Undeserved?
The most basic reason that God’s saving grace is undeserved by people is that each individual person (and humanity as a whole) is sinful. The Old Testament saw this reality of the sinful nature of humanity, as does the New Testament.
Ancient Pagan Texts
The reality of humanity being prone to sin was recognized even in ancient pagan literature. “Never has a sinless child been born to its mother, / … a sinless worker has not existed from of old” (James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament with Supplement, Third Edition, 1969).
Akkadian prayers of different kinds express the same idea:
• “Who is there who has not sinned against his god? Who that has kept the commandment forever? All humans who exist are sinful.”
• “Mankind, as many as there are, Which one of them comprehends his faults? Who has not transgressed and who has not committed sin? Which one understands the way of the god?”
• “Whoever was there so on his guard that he did not sin? Whoever was so careful that he did not incur guilt?”
(The above quotes in English and their original sources are from Robin C. Cover, “Sin, Sinners,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 6, ed. David Noel Freedman [New York: Doubleday, 1992], pp. 32-33.)
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