If it up to us to make the response, then we can unmake the response. Otherwise, we lose the unfettered ability to choose.
So either God chooses and we are secure in our election, or we choose, and have the ability to both follow or walk away.
True. Jesus is clear that God draws us.
I don't believe in *free will* as we are not a free, uninfluenced being who can make choices without external influences brought to bear on us.
But for some reason, God worked it out that while it's all Him in drawing us to Himself, we have the choice to make.
Choose ye this day whom you would serve...(Josh 1:9
We are admonished continually to choose. I can't see God commanding us something that we are incapable of doing. Even if we have to have His Help in doing it.
Love isn't love unless it's freely given.
If God wanted robots, He could have made us all so that we had not choice. But then we'd be like animals operating by instinct.
That's not the situation I see presented in Scripture in how He has related with mankind throughout history.
So either God chooses and we are secure in our election, or we choose, and have the ability to both follow or walk away.
Or we choose and He secures us in that choice, protecting us from ourselves.
When I am in Christ, I am a new creation, the old is gone, the new has come, I have died in Christ.
I do not see that new nature choosing to reject God.