“Instead of your [former] shame you will have a double portion; And instead of humiliation your people will shout for joy over their portion. Therefore, in their land they will possess double [what they had forfeited]; Everlasting joy will be theirs.” Isaiah 61:7 AMP
What a great promise from God for those of us who had suffered at the hands of the enemy as he tried to destroy our lives! I can truly testify to the reality of the promise of double portion. Deeply in debt and stripped of even a place to live, God has restored more than double what the enemy stole from me! I no longer walk in shame, but nations now seek me out to help them establish better systems of Emergency Medical Services for their country! Only God can do that! God has portioned to me more than I could ever deserve; that’s our God! Jesus took our disgrace, sin and shame and put an end to it on the cross! Look at this verse from the book of Hebrews:
“In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. 11Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.” Hebrews 2:10-11 NIV
While He was on the cross, He experienced all the grief, rejection, and sin we were carrying. Look at the beginning of this verse, “In bringing many sons and daughters to glory,” His goal was to take all our sin, brokenness and strife and make something beautiful of our lives! Not only did He restore our lives but gave us everlasting life in fellowship with the Father so everlasting joy would be ours! The question is…do you believe?
The Gospel can be summed up in three facts; Christ died for our sins, He was buried, and He rose again on the third day. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth these words.
“For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to [that which] the Scriptures [foretold], 4and that He was buried, and that He was [bodily] raised on the third day according to [that which] the Scriptures [foretold],” 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 AMP
Faith appropriates facts by accepting and believing them. The faith acts upon those facts! Faith does not act on feelings! It makes all the difference in your life if you life based on facts or feelings! Feelings are inconsistent, circumstance driven and unstable. Faith on the other hand is consistent, Scripture driven and stable! If we want to appropriate the promises of God, we must learn to believe the facts even when our feelings tell us different. Have a faith-filled day! Pastor Ken