“No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.” John 6:44

There is a beautiful truth that is hidden just beneath the surface of this verse; we must be DRAWN to Jesus. God is not behind us with a whip, but in front of us with open arms. But I’m not sure that even this gets to the depth of it.

There are lots of reasons that people first approach God; some out of fear, some out of love, hope, desperation, guilt – the list goes on for some time, I’m sure. I’m confident and assured of the notion that God can and will work through each of these, but I get the impression that at some point we must make a shift. We must no longer run away from fear, away from guilt, away from pain. We must instead focus our attention forward and be drawn out of God’s compelling love for us, and not pushed by the things that are behind us.

Here’s your challenge for today: check your motivations. What is it that moves you toward God? I think that many of us (myself included) likely fall into the “pushed” column as we began our journey of faith. A parent pushed us to attend, life-circumstances lead us to pray, or we had kids and thought, “We really should get them tied in with the church.” These are not uncommon scenarios. If that was your story (it was mine), has anything changed? When you were once pushed toward a relationship with Christ, do you now feel drawn toward Him?

For those that feel drawn – what is it that changed in your life that now pulls you toward relationship with our Savior? For those that feel pushed from behind – what is it that still feels like it’s missing in the relationship?

Talk to God about those things this day.