Christ is a Good Shepherd who is seeking His lost sheep even though we have not sought Him. A misunderstanding of God's character causes us to think He is trying to hide from us. There is no parable of a lost sheep that must seek and find its Shepherd.
The Bible Teaching
(a) This truth flows naturally and logically from the gospel as Good News (Luke 15:1-10). The false idea is that like a shopkeeper, the Lord regards us indifferently until we take the initiative to ferret Him out from His hiding place. The truth is that He seeks us (Psalm 119:176; Ezekiel 34:16). There are two Hebrew verbs that are translated "seek" in our English Bibles. One means searching for something that is lost or hard to find; but that verb is never used as God commanding us to "seek" Him as though He is hard to find or hiding from us. The other verb means "pay attention to" or "inquire of." (See 1 Samuel 28:7, KJV, where both verbs are used in one sentence. It is the verb "inquire of" in that verse that is translated in Isaiah 55:6 as "seek ye the Lord." What the Lord actually said is, "Inquire of Me while I may be found," "pay attention to Me.")(b) If anyone is saved at last it will be due to God's initiative; if anyone is lost at last, it will be due to his own initiative (Jeremiah 31:3; John 3:16-19).
(c) Our salvation does not depend on our maintaining a relationship with God; it depends on our believing that He stands at the door and knocks-seeking to maintain that relationship with us unless we break it off (Revelation 3:20).
How Waggoner Understood This Concept
"Not only does He call us, but He draws us. No man can come to Him without being drawn, and so Christ is lifted up to draw all to God. He tasted death for every man (Hebrews 2:9), and through Him all men have access to God. He has destroyed in His own body the enmity,-the wall that separates men from God,-so that nothing can keep any man from God unless man builds up again the barrier."The Lord draws us, but does not employ force. He calls, but does not drive. … God has purposed salvation for every soul that has ever come into the world" (Waggoner on Romans, pp. 140, 143).
"Christ is given to every man. Therefore each person get the whole of Him. The love of God embraces the whole world, but it also singles out each individual. A mother's love is not divided among her children, so that each one receives only a third, a fourth, or a fifth of it; each child is the object of all her affection. How much more so with the God whose love is more perfect than any mother's! (Isaiah 49:15). Christ is the light of the world, the Sun of Righteousness. But light is not divided among a crowd of people. If a room full of people be brilliantly lighted, each individual gets the benefit of all the light, just as much as though he were alone in the room. So the light of Christ lights every man that comes into the world. …
"How often we hear someone say, 'I am so sinful that I am afraid the Lord will not accept me!' Even some who have long professed to be Christians often mournfully wish that they could be sure of their acceptance with God. But the Lord has given no reason for any such doubt. Our acceptance is for ever settled. Christ has bought us and has paid the price.
"Why does a man go to the shop and buy an article? He wants it. If he has paid the price for it, having examined it so he knows what he is buying, does the merchant worry that he will not accept it? … It is not a matter of indifference to Jesus whether we yield ourselves to Him or not. He longs with an infinite yearning for the souls He has purchased with His own blood. 'The Son of man came to seek and to save the lost' (Luke 19:10)" (The Glad Tidings, pp. 11, 12).
Jones Had The Same Idea
"O, it has always been Satan's deception to get people to think that Christ is as far away as it is possible to put Him. The farther away men put Christ, even those who profess to believe in Him, the better the devil is satisfied; and then he will stir up the enmity that is in the natural heart, and set it to work in building up ceremonialism, and putting this in the place of Christ" (General Conference Bulletin, 1895, p. 478, condensed)."God's mind concerning human nature is never fulfilled until He finds us at His own right hand, glorified. There is revivifying power in that blessed truth. We have been content to have our minds too far from what God has for us. But now, as He comes and calls us into this, let us go where He will lead us. It is faith that does it; it is not presumption; it is the only right thing to do. Here the heavenly Shepherd is leading us; He is leading us into green pastures and by the still waters that flow from the throne of God. Let us drink deep and live. …
"Whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified,'-He glorified. He cannot glorify them until He has justified them. What means then this special message of justification that God has been sending these [seven] years to the church and to the world? It means that God is preparing to glorify His people. But we are glorified only at the coming of the Lord; therefore this special [1888] message of justification which God has been sending us is to prepare us for glorification at the coming of the Lord. In this, God is giving to us the strongest sign that it is possible for Him to give, that the next thing is the coming of the Lord.
The Good Shepherd takes the initiative. "He will prepare us; we cannot prepare ourselves. We tried a long while to justify ourselves, to make ourselves just right, and thus get ready for the coming of the Lord. But we were never satisfied; it is not done that way. No master workman looks at a piece of work he is doing as it is half finished, and begins to find fault with that. It is not finished yet. It would be an awful thing if the wondrous Master Workman were to look at us as we are half finished, and say, That is good for nothing. He goes on with His wondrous work. You and I may say, 'I don't see how the Lord is ever going to make a Christian out of me, and make me fit for heaven.' Although we may appear all rough, marred, and scarred now, He sees us as we are yonder in Christ.
"As we have confidence in Him, we will let Him carry on the work. Now He says to us, 'Let Me work, and you watch and see what I am going to do.' It is not our task at all. You can go outside of this Tabernacle and look up at that window. It looks like only a mess of melted glass thrown together, black and unsightly. But come inside and look from within, and you will see it as a beautiful piece of workmanship. Likewise you and I can look at ourselves and all looks awry, dark, and ungainly, only a tangled mass. God looks at it as it is in Jesus. When we look from the inside as we are in Jesus, we shall also see written in clear texts by the Spirit of God: 'Justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.' We shall see the whole law of God written in the heart and shining in the life. That light is reflected and shines in Jesus Christ.
"In Him God has perfected His plan concerning us. Let us take it, brethren. Let us receive it in the fullness of that self-abandoned faith that Jesus Christ has brought to us. Let the power of it work in us, raise us from the dead, and set us at God's right hand in the heavenly places in Jesus Christ, where He sits" (ibid., pp. 366-368, condensed).
Ellen White's Idea
"As Christ draws them to look upon His cross, to behold Him whom their sins have pierced, … they begin to comprehend something of the righteousness of Christ. … The sinner may resist this love, may refuse to be drawn to Christ; but if he does not resist, he will be drawn to Jesus; a knowledge of the plan of salvation will lead him to the foot of the cross in repentance for his sins, which have caused the sufferings of God's dear Son" (Steps to Christ, p. 27).