Many people overcome their past mistakes by God’s grace and become what God purposed for them. God is not interested in what we once were. He is interested in what we can become. Moses killed an Egyptian, yet God gave him a second chance to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Paul was a zealous persecutor, yet he got a second chance. Jonah had an encounter with God, but he chose.to run. He paid a dear price to resist God and do his own thing, spending 3 nights in a giant fish’s belly. Yet God gave him a second chance. He restored Jonah’s commission and He can restore all that was stolen in your life.
Here are 7 areas that God promises to restore:
1. Your health: In Jeremiah 30:17, the Lord says He “will restore health to you and heal you of your wounds.” The same Jesus that healed thousands in the Bible still has the power to restore your health today.
2. Your life: Ruth 4:15 tells about the way God provided for Naomi’s life to be restored after her husband and sons died. Through Ruth, God gave Naomi a grandson to be a restorer of life and a nourisher of her old age.
3. Your joy: David’s cry in Psalm 51: 12 is that God will restore the joy of His salvation. God is praised in the psalms as the Restorer of joy.
4. The wasted years: “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten” (Joel 2: 25). God restores the time that we spent living contrary to His truth.
5. Your spiritual walk: Galatians 6:1 describes that if someone is caught in sin, the spiritual community is to restore that person in a spirit of gentleness.
6. Your paths: Both you and your spiritual family will rebuild the breach and fill the places that were once used for rubbish (Isaiah 58: 12)
7. Your damaged soul: The Shepherd’s psalm elegantly declares that God “restores my soul; He guides me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” (Psalm 23: 3).
Have you done something in your past that you’re ashamed of? Have you ever felt that you disappointed God to such an extent that He could never love you again? God is a God of unlimited second chances. He is willing and ready to restore you to your former condition of health.
(FRANK DAMAZIO)