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enjoying everyday life
GET THE KEYS TO TOTAL
RESTORATION IN YOUR LIFE
JOYCE MEYER
God is in the business of restoration, and as believers in Double for Your Trouble
Christ, He wants to make us whole in every area of our lives. Isaiah 61:7 (AMP) says, “Instead of your [former] shame you
The process of restoration is what transforms us into the new will have a double portion; and instead of humiliation your
creation 2 Corinthians 5:17 (AMP) says we can be:“a new people will shout for joy over their portion. Therefore in their
creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]…[the pre- land they will possess double [what they had forfeited]; ev-
vious moral and spiritual condition] have passed away….” erlasting joy will be theirs.”
I remember when I desperately needed to recover from This scripture shows us that God can completely restore us—
the abuse in my past. I had thought that when I was old no matter what we’ve done or been through. And He wants
enough to leave home, I would leave the pain behind, but to bring us to a position that’s better than we would have
the problem was in my soul—my thinking and emotions. I been in if we had never gone through the messes in our
needed healing and restoration so I wouldn’t continue to lives. He wants to give us double for our trouble!
be poisoned by things that had happened to me all those
years growing up. Notice the phrase “instead of your former shame.” Do
you know what it’s like to have shame in your life? I had a
I came to this realization after a woman came to speak at shame-based nature for many years because of the abuse
our church and shared her testimony of how she had been I experienced from my father. It made me feel like some-
abused and God had healed her. My husband, Dave, thing must be wrong with me for him to do the things he
bought her book for me, and when I started to read it, it had done to me.
was so painful I threw it across the room and refused to pick
it up. But then I clearly heard the Holy Spirit speak to my But the first thing Jesus gives us through our relationship with
heart, “It’s time, Joyce.” God had a much better life for me Him is righteousness, or right standing with God (2 Corin-
than what I had known up to that point, and He wanted to thians 5:21). It’s so important for us to get this, because the
restore my soul so I could experience it. enemy wants us to think about everything that’s wrong with
