Restraining Grace

God's amazing grace is one of the sweetest, most refreshing and encouraging aspects of His love towards us. Indeed every moment, every breath is a form of grace.

 

God's grace takes many mysterious forms that often feel like hardships, but in His omniscience and kindness He holds us back from completely falling away. 

 

One of the important lessons we can learn from looking back at our struggles against sin is coming to the realization that God hadn't abandoned us, but that in a myriad of ways His grace was preventing us from heading off the deep end into certain destruction.

 

It's during the times of clarity and grief, between the marathons of lust, that we see glimpses of restraining grace.  We wonder why everything hasn't completely fallen apart and left us alone and abandoned, certainly we deserve everything that could be coming to us. 

 

It's also during those times that we see things beginning to unravel.  Our relationships with  our spouses, friends, and God are strained at best.  We see the warning signs and feel the discipline of God growing, trying to wake us up out of our sin coma.  (Stages of God's forbearance) God's warnings, discipline and conviction are also forms of restraining grace. 

 

If you haven't genuinely repented and committed to killing sin then this is not a post of encouragement,  don't expect God to rescue you against your will or to save you from the consequences of sin (Galatians 6:7).  It is true that even in the darkest times God is preserving us through His grace. 

 

But it is when we have begun to battle lust and sin we really see the power of God lifting us up, protecting you and teaching us to resist the flesh.  This is the spiritual restraining that God desires from His children.