The Double Portion

UV 1395/10,000 The Double Portion
Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto thee;

Zechariah 9 v 12

A prisoner normally does not have much hope. He lives under condemnation and shame. He has neither blessing or liberty. But the words “prisoner of hope” is a kind of oxymoron, a paradox. We should always surround ourselves in the hope we have in Jesus to overcome death, disease, curses, captivities, limitations and bondages of life. Walls of hope surround us all the time on four sides. The bars of the windows are crosses where the horizontal bars represent blessings of this lifetime and the vertical bars represent the blessings of eternal life. The horizontal bars also represents the minus sign that cancels all our curses and deficiencies. The vertical bar represents the blessings that come down from the Lord. Both types of blessings or the double portion- earthly and eternal begin here and now and continue forever. We should be encaged by our faith. The stronghold is the Lord Himself. When we turn to Him and lean on Him heavily, He will feed our hope. He will set us free from all that imprisons, constrains, restricts us. He will remove the blocks, the barriers, the hindrances to our blessings. We shall know Him who is truth and the truth shall set us free from our fears, doubts, bondages, captivities, strongholds and limitations. He will give us the former rain and the latter rain. The former rain are the blessings that we enjoyed this far. The latter rain is a double portion of those blessings.

As we place our whole-hearted hope and fix our single-minded gaze upon His grace, He will renew us. He is like a mountain around us. He will send showers of blessing but when He sends a shower of blessing we should not hold up an umbrella. We should listen earnestly to His voice, the whisper of the Holy Spirit in our ears. We should diligently study His Word and hasten to obey it fully. He promises to set us high above all nations of the earth. We will be blessed in the city and in the country. Our children will be blessed. Our bodies will be blessed. Even what we own in terms of pets or plants or land or house will be blessed. Our food and our store will be blessed. We will be blessed when we come in and blessed when we go out. Our enemies who rise up against us will attack us in one direction but flee in seven directions. None of their weapons or accusations will prosper against us. He will bless us in the land He has given us. He will establish the work of our hands. He will bless us in all that we set our hands to. We shall lend and not borrow. We shall be the head and not the tail. We shall be above and not beneath. Moreover, we will be protected and delivered from every curse and threat.

The only pre-condition to receiving the double portion of the above blessings is that we should not turn to the left or the right. We should not get distracted by worry or fear or doubt or attracted by the things advocated by others or human tradition or human knowledge and wisdom. We should be sensitive in following the promptings of the Holy Spirit and steadfast in pinning our hope on the promises of God and in delighting in obeying His commands and directions. The words “ even today” implies that this is a promise for the present and not the distant future. A double portion of these blessings are at hand, waiting to come upon us and overtake us. We need to doubly focus and remain faithful.

Prateep V Philip