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The God Of Restoration – Viral Believer
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The God Of Restoration

My Personal Experience With The God Who Restores

When I talk about the God of restoration, I do not come to you from the perspective of just teaching a biblical principle. I come to you from a lifetime of experience seeing God restore my own life.

So this article comes straight from my heart.

You see, more than once I have lost everything. I lost family, friends, finances, and even my good name.

However, I always kept the advice that a dear friend of mine gave to me.

“You worry about your character and let God worry about your reputation, life, and circumstances.”

Now that does not mean that I have always had perfect character.

In fact, I have blown it more than my fair share in life.

However, I have always tried to live my life with biblical character to the best of my ability.

So let’s take a look at how God is the God who restores.

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God’s Promise Of Restoration

Zechariah 9:12
Return to the stronghold, You prisoners of hope. Even today I declare That I will restore double to you.

When we have lost something dear to us, it is very hard to see that life can get better.

However, I am a living testimony that God will not only restore what you formerly had but that He will increase what you had.

Now I am not necessarily talking about finances, although He does restore finances, I am talking about the type of life that He has destined for you.

Jeremiah 29:11-13

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And l you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

You first need to realize that God’s destiny for you is good and not bad.

When you have lost everything, when you are going through a divorce, when you have lost family and friends, it is very easy to focus on what you have lost. This may be normal but it is not productive.

You have a promise from God. His future for you is good!

So take a deep breath, quiet your questioning mind, and place your trust in the Lord for your future. When you do, you give God permission to start taking control of your destiny and working it out for good.

God Has Not Forgotten You

Isaiah 49:15
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, And not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you.

When we have lost everything we feel that we are alone. We feel that nobody else is going through the struggle we are going through.

God is not blind and has not forgotten you.

Could you forget that you gave birth to a child?

Neither can God. You are His child and as such He is very interested in seeing that you have the life He has destined for you.

If we are honest, usually when we have suffered loss, it is because we placed our trust and future in something else other than the Lord.

So the first thing you need to do in order to see God start the restoration process once again goes back to the simplicity of just placing your trust in God, looking to Him who will lead and guide and decide the rest of your future.

In my own life, I placed my trust in my intelligence. I thought I knew the best way for my future to develop.

I was severely wrong.

Proverbs 28:26
He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, But whoever walks wisely will be delivered.

I was a fool. I trusted in my own intellect and emotions rather than trusting in God.

I made decisions that eventually brought down destruction.

That does not mean that it is 100% my fault. Some of what happened were brought about by the actions of others, however, I am not in control of what others do. I am only in control of what I do and as such, I have to take responsibility for my own actions and my own actions were foolish.

However, God was not done with this foolish man.

He foreknew that I would make some bad decisions and so He had a plan of restoration already set into place.

God Will Restore The Years You Have Lost

Joel 2:25

“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,
The crawling locust,
The consuming locust,
And the chewing locust,
My great army which I sent among you.

Just as the children of Israel had lost years of life in the Promised Land, so you may have lost years in your own personal wilderness, taken away to captivity.

All is not lost.

God is in the restoration business.

It does not matter what you have lost, God will restore to you what was taken away.

Now it may not be the same. By that, I mean that if you lost a wife, that you will be given that particular wife back.

If you have lost friends, it may not be the same friends that are restored.

If you have lost a job, you may not get the same job back.

What I mean is that God will restore to you the life He has destined for you and what is replaced will be better than what you had.

Restoration Is A Process

In our culture of microwave cooking and instant access to everything, we do not like things that take time.

Well, you are going to have to accept that restoration is a process. There is no quick prayer or religious activity that you can do in order to see restoration tomorrow.

It is a process.

It was in my own life.

The first thing that God restored was my relationship with my children.

It was not instantaneous. It took a couple of years.

The next thing that was restored was my calling to pastoral ministry.

That took 8 years.

During that time He dealt with a lot of issues in my heart and life. I was truly a shattered pot that had to be put back together piece by piece by the Lord.

However, God did it.

Finally, God has restored marriage in my life.

No, it is not with the same woman.

The choices my former wife has made are between her and the Lord.

However, God has given me a good Spirit-filled woman who loves Jesus and His people.

This took 13 years.

God’s Heart Of Restoration

God is truly the God of restoration.

In Job 42 we see that God restored Job and that He was actually given more than he had before. It says that Job’s latter days were greater than his former days. It says that he died old and full of days.

No matter what your circumstance, God wants to restore you.

He even gave instructions on how the church is to be an instrument of His restoration.

Galatians 6:1
[ Bear and Share the Burdens ] Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.

The heart of God is to see you restored. Not only spiritually, although that must come first, but also emotionally and physically.

So I encourage you. If you have come to this article wondering if you will ever find restoration, place your trust once again in the Lord. Look to Him only and surrender your life and your future to Him.

You too will be able to say that God truly is the God of restoration like I can and like numerous others in the scriptures have done.

Blessings!

Pastor Duke

Pastor Duke Taber
Pastor Duke Taber

Pastor Duke Taber

All articles have been written or reviewed by Pastor Duke Taber.
Pastor Duke Taber is an alumnus of Life Pacific University and Multnomah Biblical Seminary.
He has been in pastoral ministry since 1988.
Today he is the owner and managing editor of 3 successful Christian websites that support missionaries around the world.
He is currently starting a brand new church in Mesquite NV called Mesquite Worship Center, a Non-Denominational Spirit Filled Christian church in Mesquite Nevada.