It is a complete misunderstanding of this tenet of TULIP that would say that we cannot resist the grace of God.  Irresistible grace does not make us into pawns in the hands of a God who manipulates us however He wills to manipulate us.  Irresistible grace is simply on the one side the logical outcome of the other tenets that culminates in the perseverance of the saints and on the other side a clear affirmation of the greatness of the grace of God.

Irresistible grace simply means that the grace of God is so powerful and so overwhelming that when this great God moves into our lives by His grace, that grace changes our hearts and thus our lives.  And that change comes as a result of the work of God in our lives.  Remember that the core of genuine Calvinism is that we are sinners who are born into sin and we cannot help but sin AND our God is a holy and righteous God whose holiness and rightesouness demands either that He destroy sinners or that He deal with sin.  What God has chosen to do is to deal with sin by offering His one and only son as the sacrifice for sin and for sinners.  We are saved by the grace of God by the God who has chosen us and called us to Himself the evidence of that call and choice being seen in the manifestation of His grace to sinners.  But how does this wonderful grace of God manifest itself in relationship to sinners?  Here is where the whole idea of irrestistible grace finds its focus.

If sin is as deep and dark in us as the Bible declares it to be, then the only freedom we have in choosing direction in life is in terms of how we express our sinfulness.  The only truly free human beings ever created were Adam and Eve.  They had the freedom to choose to obey God and His directives or to disobey God and His directives.  They chose to disobey.  And from that moment until now, the result is humans who are born into sin and are thus “dead in our trespasses and sins.”  If the image of Scripture about our sinfulness is that we are “dead,” then isn’t it fair to conclude that dead people do not make choices?  So, how then does a person surrender His life to Jesus?  How does a person submit to the Lordship of Jesus?  The answer is the astounding, amazing grace of God.  God comes to us as sinners and awakens in us what is needed through the conviction of sin to bring us to repentance and faith which are themselves gifts of the grace of God.  And through these gifts of grace we yield our lives to Jesus as Lord trusting Him alone for our salvation as we open our lives to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit whose work in our lives too is a gift of grace.

Irresistible grace is simply the reality that when God begins to move in our lives to bring us the gifts of repentance and faith, those gifts that emerge out of His awakening us to our sinfulness and His saving us from our sin; we do not resist because we are so overwhelmed by His grace.  Luke records for us that episode when Jesus was coming into town and met a funeral procession on the way to the cemetary.  Jesus saw the grief striken mother and the child on the funeral pyre.  He was moved with compassion and He manifest grace.  He spoke the dead person and the dead person was awakened to life.  That was irresistible grace.  That was God moving in a mighty way to awaken the dead.  It is no different than what God does whenver a sinner is saved.

I think our problem and struggle with irresistible grace has nothing to do with grace.  It has to do with the reality that we do not really see how sinful we are.  If I am basically good by nature with some part of God in me by nature, then I can believe perhaps that I can choose the course of my life when I want to choose and how I want to choose.  But If I am thorougly and totally sinful, then any choice I make is rooted in and rests upon God’s choice to call me out of the darkness of death as He delivers to me His grace.  We sing about irresistible grace every time we sing, “Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”  Irresistible grace in its most simple form is that grace comes looking for us even when we don’t go looking for grace.