“What did I do to deserve this?” was the question Holy Spirit brought to my remembrance two weeks ago. He reminded me that, nearly two decades ago, these were my words to Him as He began to lead me through a ten-year, ten-month season of tribulation.
But God didn’t just bring this remembrance to my mind. He also brought a corresponding revelation for right now. In other words, Holy Spirit redefined this now rhetorical question. He was doing a new thing with an old thing.
In a flash of understanding, He revealed the answer to this question for this season to be “nothing,” meaning I have done nothing to deserve the great blessing of His recompense that He is now about to flood into my life.
Holy Spirit helped me to know, beyond a hint of doubt, that His goodness is not based on anything I’ve done—good or bad.
And, friends, this is not just for me.
God loves to give good gifts to His children (Mt 711). His transformed ones are on the cusp of outward multiplicity like they have never experienced. I’m talking about shock, awe and wonder of God’s unconditional blessings beyond what they have never known. I’m talking about the blessings of God that cause them to gasp as our Lord presents His finest, serendipitous, dream-come-true gifts to them in tangible form.
The Word I believe Holy Spirit revealed to me is this…
Painful, undeserved experiences and times are now coming full circle as God continues to deliver His inwardly transformed ones into His manifest goodness of recompense, reward and justice. These gifts will be hundredfold as described in Mark 10:30 and illustrated in the “Book of Ruth.” These blessings will be so over and above what they can think or imagine, they will wonder, “What did I do to deserve this?”
Where they were blindsided by the enemy in past times, and even tried to cover up the ugly parts, God worked the whole time to restore their foundations and erect a holy fortress for them that would prove serendipitous forward. As they continue to walk with Almighty God, they will now be blindsided by His gloriously beautiful and undeserved recompenses for every time they were blindsided by the enemy (Psalm 37:4-6, 61:2-4, 91:1-2).
Where their deeds were once returned on their own heads in the past, the renewed minds of God’s conformed ones can expect to receive a different harvest this time (Ob 1:15). Their deep inward transformation is now producing outward beauty. And some of their best rewards will be unexpected, as God gives them something over and above what they can share with others.
God is completing their mourning-to-dancing and ashes-to-beauty cycles in tangible ways as they continue to walk with Him by faith in His glory. What once felt like a Joshua and Caleb story of battle after battle, our God is giving the dominion of Jericho to them in a physical, manifest way. And it’s just the beginning. God has enabled them to claim victory after victory and will now do it manifestly, as His insight in them comes into physical sight. This is the beginning of His expanse of goodness restored in their lives (Ge 1).
God is giving them the things of old made new with promises that reflect His character and ways, satisfying them in abundance as they have kept their eyes on Him. Examples may be inherited land, restored houses, family members coming home spiritually and physically. God reuniting former things in new form for new beginnings.
It’s time for the beautiful and appropriate blessings of Ecclesiastes 3:11 to begin to manifest. The Amplified version says, “He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God]—yet man cannot find out (comprehend, grasp) what God has done (His overall plan) from the beginning to the end.”
Now is a time where God’s conformed ones will receive a string of profound, life-changing, breakthrough, manifest, unconditional covenant blessings as a result of receiving the overflow of His grace upon grace, as in John 1:16 TPT, which says, “from the overflow of his fullness we received grace heaped upon more grace!”
These blessings will happen “on the heels of the other,” as described in Amos 9:13 MSG. “So fast your head will swim…you won’t be able to keep up.”
As God’s conformed ones find themselves living in the evidence of a state of “only God could have done this,” they will be positioned in new, highlighted roles as witnesses of the goodness, the victory and the glory of The Lord God Almighty.
Friends, it’s not finished until it manifests.
Pray with me if you will…
Dear Lord,
Thank You for getting Your people unstuck and receiving Your manifest blessings by Your grace of transformation and manifestation. Thank You for Your good gifts that You give to Your children. Thank You for revealing Your true character in the process, by showing us that it’s only by Your grace that You enable us to receive Your beautiful gifts. We, Lord, are eternally grateful beyond what we can adequately describe. Thank You for helping us to remain in You as we continue to walk with You into blessings we cannot contain for Your glory.
In Jesus’ Mighty Name,
Amen.
Friends, join me next week for Part 2 of Give Away: Challenge to Victory.
This devo was graciously re-posted by the Salem Web Network, which includes iBelieve.com.