April—The Purpose of Grace

To Draw Us to God, April 1

I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. Jeremiah 31:3.AG 99.1

The Lord of life and glory clothed His divinity with humanity to demonstrate to man that God through the gift of Christ would connect us with Him. Without a connection with God no one can possibly be happy. Fallen man is to learn that our Heavenly Father cannot be satisfied until His love embraces the repentant sinner, transformed through the merits of the spotless Lamb of God.AG 99.2

The work of all the heavenly intelligences is to this end. Under the command of their General they are to work for the reclaiming of those who by transgression have separated themselves from their Heavenly Father. A plan has been devised whereby the wondrous grace and love of Christ shall stand revealed to the world. In the infinite price paid by the Son of God to ransom man, the love of God is revealed. This glorious plan of redemption is ample in its provisions to save the whole world. Sinful and fallen man may be made complete in Jesus through the forgiveness of sin and the imputed righteousness of Christ.^{1Messages to Young People, 137.}AG 99.3

In all the gracious deeds that Jesus did, He sought to impress upon men the parental, benevolent attributes of God.... Jesus would have us understand the love of the Father, and He seeks to draw us to Him by presenting His parental grace. He would have the whole field of our vision filled with the perfection of God's character.... It was only by living among men that He could reveal the mercy, compassion, and love of His heavenly Father; for it was only by actions of benevolence that He could set forth the grace of God.^{2Sons and Daughters of God, 139.}AG 99.4

Christ came to manifest the love of God to the world, to draw the hearts of all men to Himself.... The first step toward salvation is to respond to the drawing of the love of Christ.... It is that men may understand the joy of forgiveness, the peace of God, that Christ draws them through the manifestation of His love. If they respond to His drawing, yielding their hearts to His grace, He will lead them on step by step, to a full knowledge of Himself, and this is life eternal.^{3Selected Messages 1:323, 324.}AG 99.5