A DOUBLE PORTION

Isaiah 61:7
Instead of your shame you shall have double; and instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess double; everlasting joy shall be to them. (WEB)

I think God prefers multiplication to addition. He loves to multiply His blessings to us. In the original blessing to Adam and Eve found in Genesis 1, we read how God pronounced a blessing of fruitfulness and multiplication on them.

In today's Bible passage from the wonderful Isaiah 61 chapter that Jesus quoted in Luke 4:16-21, we read of God's heart for His people. Instead of our shame, our Father wants us to possess a double portion of our inheritance. He just does not want to add goodness to our life, He wants to multiply it!

It does not matter how good or how bad our life history has been. It is our Father's good pleasure to give us His Kingdom and replace our shame with a double portion of His blessings. Through our Elder Brother Jesus Christ, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3).

We are not orphans left alone in this world to fend for ourselves, but we are sons and daughters to our Heavenly Father and joint-heirs with Jesus (Romans 8:15-17). May the reality of this promise go deep into our hearts today. May God give us the grace to exchange the memories of shame that might still linger in our soul with the amazing heaven sent double portion of God's blessings today and forevermore!

Ephesians 1:3-14
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ; 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and without blemish before him in love; 5 having predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire, 6 to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely bestowed favor on us in the Beloved, 7 in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him 10 to an administration of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, in him; 11 in whom also we were assigned an inheritance, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his will; 12 to the end that we should be to the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ: 13 in whom you also, having heard the word of the truth, the Good News of your salvation—in whom, having also believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is a pledge of our inheritance, to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory. (WEB)