September 10 Daily Devotional

God’s restoring grace

Just when we have reached our limit, when we are most hopeless and when we are about to give way to final despair ... suddenly God intervenes ... and brings us back. He restores us to the fellowship—fellowship with Himself most particularly, but also to the fellowship of His people, and gives us back the joy we had lost. He lifts us up out of ‘the horrible pit, out of the miry clay’ and sets our feet upon a rock and establishes our goings.

David, king of Israel, knew something about this … (2 Samuel 12)…. God’s restoring grace. He brings the soul back again, according to His own wondrous love and His amazing kindness…. Is there anything more consoling, more wonderful, than to know that we are in the hands of God? He controls everything. He is the Lord God Almighty, the Lord of the universe, who works everything according to the counsel of His own eternal will. He has set His love upon you; therefore nothing can harm you. ‘The very hairs of your head are all numbered.’ He will not let you go. You may fall deeply into sin, and go very far astray, but you will not be utterly cast down; He will hold you from that final fall. He will always bring you back. ‘He restoreth my soul’, says the Psalmist. And after He restores He will lead you into ‘green pastures’ and by ‘the still waters’. And He will deal with you in such a marvellous way that you will find it difficult to believe that you have ever done what you have done. God’s restoring grace!

Faith on Trial, p. 94