I’ll never forget something my family and I heard Elder DJ Ward say in a video of one of his sermons. He said, “If God had not chosen some, Heaven would have none.” Did you hear what he said? “If God had not chosen some, Heaven would have none.”
Now, let’s be honest—does that make God sound arbitrary? Does it deny our freedom to choose to follow Him? Those are fair questions. And that statement hit us. It was one of those moments that made me stop and think deeply.
Because—is it true that if God hadn’t moved first, if He hadn’t initiated the work in our hearts, none of us would ever be willing to turn to Him? That’s a sobering thought if it’s true. But is it?
Let’s look at what Scripture says. Romans 3:10-11 reads, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.” That’s not a guess—that’s a clear declaration. So this seems to say that no one seeks God. And Scripture seems to say it’s not just that we don’t come to Him—we can’t, unless He draws us (John 6:44). 1 Corinthians 2:14 tells us the natural person “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God… and he is not able to understand them.” Romans 8:7-8 adds that “those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
So yes, the Bible affirms that apart from God’s gracious initiative, we are spiritually unable to come. But the beauty of the gospel is this: God does not leave us to ourselves. He moves first. He draws. He opens eyes and softens hearts.
And here’s the tension we must hold: just because salvation begins with God doesn’t mean we have no role in responding. In fact, it’s because He moves first that we can respond at all. And we must. That doesn’t erase our responsibility—it establishes it.
God calls us to turn to Him (Isaiah 45:22), to repent (Acts 17:30), to believe (John 6:29), and to surrender (James 4:7–8). And we must. We are fully responsible to respond to His grace, to yield to His call, to stop resisting His call to repentance and faith in Him. His initiative doesn’t cancel our responsibility—it makes it possible (Philippians 2:12–13; John 6:44).
That truth ties directly into one of the most powerful images in Scripture: the potter and the clay. We see it in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and again in Romans 9. Over and over, God reminds us: He is the potter, and we are the clay. He forms, He shapes, and yes, He even reshapes—according to His will and for His purposes.
In Isaiah 29 and 45, God uses this image to rebuke those who question His wisdom. He says, “Shall the potter be regarded as the clay?” (Isaiah 29:16). In other words, who are we to question God? Then in Jeremiah 18, we see the potter reworking marred clay into something new. That’s not just a picture of judgment—it’s a picture of grace. It’s God showing us that even when we’ve failed, even when we’ve resisted Him, He’s willing to reshape us—if we turn to Him.
Then we get to Romans 9, and Paul takes this image even deeper. He says God has the right to make out of the same lump of clay vessels for honor and vessels for dishonor—because He’s not just the Potter, He’s the sovereign God of all creation. And yet, Paul also says God does this to make known the riches of His glory—to display His mercy. It’s not cold sovereignty. It’s purposeful. It’s glorious. It’s full of mercy.
Now listen—this might surprise some of us, but Scripture shows us that even our repentance doesn’t start with us. It’s not something we just muster up on our own. The Bible says in 2 Timothy 2:25 that God is the one who grants repentance. Ezekiel 36:26 says He gives us a new heart. Philippians 2:13 tells us that God works in us to will and to act according to His good pleasure. And John 6:44 reminds us that no one can come unless the Father draws them. Even our faith—Ephesians 2:8 says—is a gift.
So what do we do with this? We humble ourselves. We stop resisting. We thank God for His mercy, and we ask Him to keep molding us because the Potter isn’t done yet. So what do we do? We turn away from our sin and turn toward God, believing in His Son, Jesus, confessing with our mouth and believing in our heart that He is Lord. And when you do that, you’re not saving yourself—you’re responding to what God is already doing in you. You’re proving that He’s drawing you to Himself.
So, whether or not you fully agree with what Elder DJ Ward said—“If God had not chosen some, Heaven would have none”—God is still working. If you believe in Him, you belong to Him—and He is shaping you, patiently and purposefully, into a vessel of mercy, fit for His glory. But if you haven’t yet repented and placed your faith in Jesus for salvation, He offers you that grace today. You, too, can be clay in the Potter’s hands—reshaped, renewed, and made new in Christ.
