395 Double For Your Trouble

Our God is a God of restoration. I love the TV shows where they take an old undesirable house and fix it up to become the best house in the neighborhood. Well, that’s the perfect image of what God does. He fixes us up, restores us, redeems us, and brings us back to the image he had in mind when he created us. He not only does that for you, but remember he does that for your loved one who has gone astray. He’s in the process of restoring them too. God has a promise for you tucked away in his word, a promise for you to cling to. Zechariah 9:12 – “Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.” Whatever you’ve gone through, whatever you’re going through now, whatever has been lost or sacrificed, God is about to repay you with double. If you will stay faithful, if you will keep the course, everything you’ve lost will be returned to you double! Isn’t that reason enough to keep going today? Isn’t that reason enough to push through? Did you lose a year of your life battling sickness? You’ll be repaid with two of the best years of your life. Years you could have never imagined. Did you lose money to someone who was dishonest or deceitful? No worries, you’ll be repaid double and the repaying will come from God. Has someone walked out on your life, abandoned or neglected you. Ahhhhh, you know what God has in store for you? Someone TWICE AS GOOD! Did you lose a job? Watch out, God’s bringing one that is twice as good! You have no reason to be down today. No reason to be without hope. God is working to restore you and he’s going to do it double! “Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.” God gives a promise here, a promise that he will restore you to double, he will repay you twice for your troubles, but there’s something you must do too. What does this scripture say, RETURN TO YOUR STRONGHOLD. A stronghold is a safe place that has been tightly secured in case of attack. Some translations say return to your fortress or your place of safety. Now this is an instruction for you today. Understand you are under attack. Every day the enemy is on the prowl just waiting to pounce on any area of weakness. Searching for any crack in your life he can weasel his way into and do his nasty work of tearing you down and rendering you ineffective for the good works you were created to do. He knows the person you were created to be, he sees your potential and his mission is to keep you stuck in a little life plagued with anxieties and worries so you don’t dare step into your BIG life. So God says return to your stronghold. Get back in here to your place of safety. Where is that? In the shadow of the Lord. Psalm 91:1 says “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” You’re living under the protection of God when you’re seeking him and coming in close to him. You can’t enjoy the shelter of a tree and rest in it’s shadow if you’re on the other side of the fence, right? You have to come in close to the tree and lay under it to be in it’s shadow and protection. Understand God is your stronghold. He is your place of safety. And he’s waiting for you to come in close to him and receive his protection. Let him shelter you. Let his shadow cover you. When life gets hard, and I’m feeling the heat from the flames, I like to imagine God in his almighty, huge state walking right beside me just casting a shadow over me. Everything else is getting melted by the heat, but I’m just walking right on through because he is by my side and his shadow is on me. If you’re not protected by his shadow, could that mean that maybe you’re on the wrong side of the fence?