Gregory Dickow - The Goodness of God Restores Everything
The goodness of God restores everything, and I want to talk about restoration some more today. We visited this topic two or three weeks ago, and the Lord put it on my heart to drill down a little deeper and further into this topic of how the goodness of God restores everything. I believe that you’re coming into days of restoration; I’m coming into days; we’re coming into days of restoration. And God has made promises to restore.
The word «restore» means to put back in its original condition or to return back to the original owner. Do you know that God made you an owner of the things that He owns? We’re stewards over His things, but we’re also co-owners. We’re joint heirs with Jesus Christ. That means we’re not just managing what God has given us; we are part owners of God’s kingdom and God’s inheritance. You’re a joint heir with Jesus Christ. Man, say that: I’m a joint heir with Jesus Christ. One translation says «a co- heir,» a fellow heir. It’s equal. He’s made us equal. Boy, Jesus solves the inequality problem. We’re trying to solve it in every way that we can, but Jesus solves it ultimately. He establishes our equality, not just with each other, but also with Him.
Our equality with each other is much easier when we recognize our equality with Him. We have that royalty mindset that we don’t let anybody take our crown. We’ve been crowned with royalty, and we’re not letting anybody take our crown. Jesus gave it to you: a crown of authority, a crown of identity, a crown of royalty. We need to act like it’s ours and refuse to let the devil rob us of that crown and that sense of our equality with Christ, joint heirs with Him. But man, I believe and prophesy over you today that a season of restoration is coming to you: the restoration of your peace, the restoration of your finances, the restoration of time, the restoration of health, the restoration of relationships.
You know, I believe God has promised the restoration of all these things and so much more. But let me just go over these first few with you: God promises to restore peace to us. Has your peace been tampered with by the enemy, by the pandemic, affected, or even stolen? The peace of God we’re talking about is what God gives: His peace. Jesus said, «My peace I give to you, not as the world gives.» This is not a peace that depends on something happening or something going your way politically or in this world system; that’s not what determines whether you can have peace. We can have the peace of God, and God says He will give us His peace. Jesus said, «My peace,» not just any old peace, «My peace I give to you.» It’s a gift. He restores to us the peace that passes understanding.
He even says in Jeremiah 33:6 and 7: «Behold, I will bring to you health and healing, and I will heal them, and I will reveal to them an abundance of peace and truth. I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel and rebuild them as they were at first.» Notice what He says: He’ll bring us peace in verse 6-health, healing, an abundance of peace, and truth that makes us free. And He says, «I will restore your fortunes.» Your fortunes; He will restore your finances, your fortunes-the inheritance stored up for you. He’s the God of restoration, amen?
And He wants to restore these things. He promises to restore whatever the enemy stole; it includes finances. Proverbs 6:30 and 31 says: «Men do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he’s hungry. But when he’s found, he must repay sevenfold; he must give all the substance of his house.» The thief has been found. It’s the thief that comes to steal, kill, and destroy. It’s the thief that has come to disrupt your peace, disrupt your finances, disrupt your home, disrupt your family, disrupt our world. But God is the God of restoration. He heals and He restores; He delivers and gives back everything.
You see, when the thief is found, he has to repay. And I’m going to show you how the thief gets in. Is it peace that you need Him to restore? Is it finances? Is it time? Joel 2:25 says: «I will restore the years; I will restore to you the years.» This translation, New American Standard, says, «I will make up to you for the years.» The New King James says, «I will restore to you the years that have been eaten, that have been devoured.» And really, all these things-peace, finances, time, health, relationships-God wants to restore all of those through the access or through the avenue of your soul. Everything starts in the soul. The soul goes first. The soul prospers first, and everything follows that.
Beloved, I wish above all things-3 John, verse 2- Beloved, I wish above all things that you would prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers. The rest of your life goes as the soul goes. And that’s a theme in the Word of God throughout, from Genesis to Revelation. It’s a theme in Life Changers Church, all about the soul and the health of your soul because everything flows from there; it affects everything else. Psalm 23:1: «The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters.» Still waters mean you can see your reflection in the water-that there aren’t waves and ripples, but they’re still.
It says in the King James Version, New King James, and many other versions: «He leads me beside the still waters.» What does that mean? Those still waters mean it’s like looking into a mirror. The Word of God is the still waters. When we look into the Word of God, we see who we really are; we see who we are in Christ. It’s only in Christ that we find out who we are and what we’re living for. And so when we look into the still waters of the Word of God, it’s to be a reflection. We’re not looking into the Word of God for the dos and don’ts, for all the rules and regulations; we’re looking in the Word of God for who we are.
And we’re seeing the reflection: Whoa! We look just like Jesus in our spirit. And it’s working through our soul as we meditate on God’s Word. As our mind stays on His Word, we experience the transformation of our lives-from glory to glory, from sickness to health, from fear to faith, from anxiety to peace, from feeling angry to feeling and having kindness flow through our soul. Yes, God says, «He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.»
So, the still waters is the Word of God, but the green pastures is the church. You start seeing doors open that no man can close because your soul is being restored. That’s when you can walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil because your soul is being restored. That’s when you can experience the comfort of God: «Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.» When your soul is restored, He prepares a table for you. He said, «He anoints my head with oil; prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies, anoints my head with oil; my cup overflows, runs over.»
Goodness and mercy follow me. See, we don’t need to chase things down that we think are good for us. Those good things are going to chase us down. We just trust God-trust in the blood of Jesus; trust in the finished work of the cross-and goodness and mercy are going to follow you all the days of your life. There are three things I want to help expose about the devil and how he has caused your soul to be unhealthy in some ways. These three things are what Satan loves to corrupt our soul with.
Remember, when the soul is sick, everything else follows. And when the soul is restored to health, everything else follows. So, there are three things that I think Satan loves to use to corrupt and keep our soul unhealthy: Number one, grievances. Number two, grief. And number three, guilt. They’re all G’s today. Okay, we’re g-ing up today, right? But grievances, grief, and guilt-those three things Satan loves to stir up in people to have grievances. Now, what is a grievance? A grievance is bitterness, resentment, or anger over something or someone that you feel treated you wrong or unfairly.
A grievance is bitterness or resentment or anger over something or someone, even if it’s imagined. It could be real or imagined. In many cases, it’s real; in many cases, we imagine it ourselves, but it still creates the same emotion of grievance. «I’ve got a grievance; I’ve got something against somebody; I’ve got a complaint against somebody.» The Bible says, when Job kept his complaint going, it brought all sorts of negativity into his life. Boy, if we could just get a hold of that one-that if we let go of our complaints and start trusting God, what God can do for you is greater than whatever anybody else did to you.
What God has done for us is greater than what anyone has done to us. What Jesus has already done for us is greater than what anybody has done to us. And what Jesus has done for us is greater than what anything life has done to us. We have to understand that grievances will sometimes- well, grievances will corrupt the health of your soul. To hold on to a grievance, Job 5:2 in the Good News Translation says, «To worry yourself to death with resentment would be foolish, a senseless thing to do.»
To worry yourself with resentment, he says, would be foolish and a senseless thing to do. A grievance-you know, in Hebrews 12:15, it says, «We fall short of the grace of God, and a root of bitterness springs up.» What he’s saying there is to fall short -we’ve learned, we’ve studied these words, and I’ve shown you the meaning. This word «to fall short» means to be less than. The word «short» actually comes from the same word as «inferior.»
So, to fall short means to be inferior to the grace of God. You see, there’s no way we can live without God’s grace. There’s no way we can be everything God created us to be without His grace. His grace is sufficient for us. But when we look at people based on what they’ve done to us, we’re living less than what grace has purchased for us. We’re living beneath and below what the grace of God has purchased for us. The grace of God has purchased new life for you, a new identity for you, new righteousness for you, new hope, new favor, new blessing-everything.
Jesus on the cross became cursed so that His grace could be revealed to you, so that His blessing could be yours. And when you are giving more weight to what somebody has done to you or what life has done to you more than what Jesus has done for you, you live a life that is inferior to your grace-purchased life, your grace-purchased identity, your grace-purchased blessing, your grace-purchased royalty, your grace — purchased sense of confidence, your grace-purchased righteousness to be able to stand before God without guilt, without inferiority, without shame. You see, a grievance causes us to look at what the person did to us rather than look-he said «look carefully» at the grace of God.
Look carefully at what Jesus did because if you focus on what they did, you are going to let a root of bitterness spring up, and it’s going to cause trouble in your life and defile many areas of your life and many people in your life. The goodness of God frees you from your grievance. I believe that all bitterness is the evidence that we are not believing in the goodness of God at that moment. We’re not believing in the goodness of God in that season of our life. All the grievances go away when you simply believe in the grace of God.
When you don’t understand and the goodness of God-when you don’t understand what’s happening, when you can’t figure something out, knowing that God is good is enough because His goodness explains everything. When you don’t understand something, knowing God is good will be enough for you. It will be enough. I know it sounds so simple, but it will be enough. I want you to see that the next thing that really makes the soul unhealthy is grief. Grief is the sense of loss. Grief is the emotion that comes from a sense of loss.
What we have to realize is that God has found us, and He provides us with everything that we need. And so, even though you might have lost some time and lost what we started with-peace, finances, time, health, relationships-God’s going to restore all five of those things in your life. But when you feel like you’ve lost those things, it creates grief. And grief darkens the soul and makes the soul unhealthy. Until we pour that grief out on the Lord by giving it back to Him. Because in Isaiah 53:4, «Surely He has borne our griefs and our sorrows He carried.» So, what we need to do is take our grief-take our sadness, our sense of loss, our despair, our depression, our discouragement, our sorrow-and we need to give it to Him.
Say, «Lord, You bore it, so why should I bear it too? You took this grief, so why should I take it?» Hand it back to Jesus because He has already nailed it to the cross. Lay it at the cross that He nailed it to. Not guilty! Not guilty! Don’t keep beating yourself up. Jesus took the beating so you don’t have to take it anymore. Stop beating yourself up. Jesus took the beating so that you could be free from guilt. Today, today is your day. Today is the day God’s going to restore all this stuff to you.
I want you to see something in Romans 12: 19 because I want you to believe this with every fiber in your being: that God will avenge you. He said, «Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.» I want you to understand something: when He says, «I will avenge you; I will repay,» what He’s saying is this: I am going to write every wrong. God Himself is going to write every wrong.
Listen, He is the one that turns things around. He turned the Nile into blood. He turned the sea into dry land. He turned the curse into the blessing. He turned sorrow into joy. He turns grief into dancing. He turned two fish and five loaves into feeding thousands. He turned dead bodies into resurrected bodies. God is your turnaround King. And I want you to hear this: God will write every wrong. He’ll write every wrong that the enemy has done to you. We saw that in Joel 2:2. God will write every wrong that the enemy has done to you. God will write every wrong that people have done to you.
He turned things around for Joseph. His brothers threw him in a pit. God turned it around. He will write every wrong. Trust Him today. God will write every wrong that time has done to you. God will write every wrong that the enemy has done to you. God will write every wrong that others have done to you. God will write every wrong that time has done to you. God will write every wrong that you have done to you; that I have done to me.
How will He do that? Let’s close with this. How will God restore these things? How will God write every wrong? Number one: give Him time. It says in Ecclesiastes 3:1, «He makes all things beautiful in its time.» He makes all things beautiful in its time. Give Him your trust. Give Him your time. Give Him your words. Isaiah 42:22 says God will restore these things to us as we declare «restore.»
The reason why they were getting stolen and robbed from is because no one was saying «restore.» You can see it in this verse, verse 22: «No one says restore.» But when we prophesy restoration, our words start becoming an army on our behalf to restore. We’re going to do this in a moment. We’re going to give God our words. We’re going to give the universe our words. Give Him time, give Him trust, give Him your words, and give Him praise.
You know, when it comes to giving God praise, you know what causes God to be praised? It’s when you let go of your opinion and believe Him; trust Him. When we surrender our thought life to Him, that’s really giving Him praise. That’s what worship really is. We’re not worshiping God just because we sing; we’re worshiping God when we surrender our opinions and we say, «I take God at His word.» And that’s what renews our mind. Romans 12:1 and 2 is talking about presenting our body as a living sacrifice. It’s a sacrifice of our opinions; it’s not a sacrifice of our physical body.
He calls it a living sacrifice. How does God restore these things? God’s going to restore. This is our time of God restoring your peace, finances, time, health, relationships. How does He do it? Give Him trust, give Him time, give Him your words, and give Him praise.