Lost Years Restored

“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust. . . . You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; and My people shall never be put to shame.”

Joel 2:25–26

Today’s scripture contains such a beautiful promise. The most precious thing that our Lord Jesus can restore to you is the lost years of your life.

All the years that the locusts have eaten, God can supernaturally restore to you. Every minute spent in fear, worry, doubt, guilt, condemnation, addiction, and sin adds up to wasted years that have been stolen from you.

But I have good news for you today. Because of what our Lord Jesus has done for us on the cross, you can believe for total and complete restoration, for God to redeem ALL the time that has been lost and wasted!

Let me share this phenomenal testimony of God’s restoration from a brother by the name of Clarence, who resides in West Virginia:

I was a drug addict for ten years, injecting opiates into my veins every day. Even though I knew that the addiction was destroying me, I did not want to stop what I was doing.

But two years ago, my heavenly Daddy delivered me from the addiction by placing me in a halfway house. I was stuck there, unable to leave, and unable to get anyone to pick me up. And God not only removed my drug addiction, but my smoking addiction at the same time!

While I was in the halfway house, I listened to many grace preachers but always ended up with a feeling of weight on my shoulders. My mother had been telling me to listen to Joseph Prince, but I resisted it initially, wondering how a man from Singapore could have anything to say about God’s grace.

Boy, was I wrong. Singapore sent a missionary to America! Praise the Lord!

Through Joseph Prince’s messages, I found rest in understanding Jesus’ finished work at the cross. I also learned that condemnation kills and that on the cross, Christ had absorbed all my condemnation. Once I saw that, I saw the next crucial thing—that GOD IS MY DAD, and that means all good things are mine in Christ Jesus!

Today, I am running a successful art business that has grown by leaps and bounds. I now own a home with my wife and she also has a growing business.

In addition, my relationship with my daughter from my previous marriage has also been restored. I was not allowed to see her for the past ten years but now, she has been staying with me over the weekends!

It is truly overwhelming to think of how fast my Dad has restored all the wasted years! Not only has He restored my life, but He has also restored my heart and mind toward Him. What a contrast to the years when I was still a drug addict, homeless, and eating scraps off plates at the houses of drug dealers!

The grace revolution is a revolution of restoration. All the years this precious brother had lost to his addiction were restored to him when he embraced the grace of our Lord.

In the same way, all the years lost wandering in the parched wilderness of legalism, Christian religion, and the ways of the old covenant can be restored to you. You don’t have to live bound by any shackles. You can be set free to truly live the abundant life Jesus came to give you!

This devotional is taken from the book Glorious Grace—100 Daily Readings from Grace Revolution.