No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him . . . no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.
How We Come to Faith | Devotional
No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him . . . no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.
John 6:44, 65
The manner of Lydia’s conversion is a fine illustration of how God always redeems lost souls.
From our human perspective, we may think that we are seeking Him, that trusting Christ is merely a “decision” that lies within the power of our own will to choose, or that we are sovereign over our own hearts and affections.
In reality, wherever you see a soul like Lydia’s truly seeking God, you can be certain God is drawing her.
Whenever someone trusts Christ, it is God who opens the heart to believe. If God Himself did not draw us to Christ, we would never come at all. Jesus was quite clear about this (John 6:44–65).
Acts 16:14 describes Lydia as a woman “who worshiped God.” Intellectually, at least, she already knew that YHWH was the one true God.
She apparently met regularly with the Jewish women who gathered to pray on the Sabbath, but she had not yet become a convert to Judaism.
Her heart was truly open. She was a genuine seeker of God. But notice Luke’s whole point: it was not that Lydia opened her own heart and ears to the truth. Yes, she was seeking, but even that was because God was drawing her.
She was listening, but it was God who gave her ears to hear. She had an open heart, but it was God who opened her heart.
Luke expressly affirms the sovereignty of God in Lydia’s salvation: “The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul” (16:14).
How have you sensed God drawing you?