Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you. Zechariah 9:12 

Fortresses are places of security, safety, and provision. People strive to build all of these things with the ways of the world, bigger houses, careers, bank accounts and more. These things are built up in hopes of a more secure future.

All of these provide a false sense of what people are really desiring. Each of these are temporary and will fade away or can be quickly removed.

Zechariah gives a call to the Israelites to return to their fortress. As they return, they will also be restored with twice as much as they had lost.

Believers are living in a fallen world and have often become prisoners of this world. They can get caught up in what the world sees as important and strive after those things. Rather than looking up to God, they look outward to people and the things of this world.

When Zechariah made this call, he had just prophesied about Jesus coming. Jesus, being God, is the fortress that everyone can run to. He is a firm foundation that everyone can stand upon.

God is a God of hope, salvation, and provision. The world and sin has tried to take away the joy and hope of salvation from believers.

When the believer returns to God, his fortress, he will get twice as much as what was stolen from him restored–twice as much joy, grace, salvation, hope, peace, and provision. These are things that will last for eternity and cannot be taken away.

Jesus has broken the chains of sin and bondage so that every believer can return to the fortress of God to have a hope that lasts for eternity.

Over time you may have allowed the ways of the world trap you into thinking as the world does. You may have allowed yourself to get trapped into seeking all of your needs as the world does.

It is not too late, you can turn around and return to God with all of your heart. Go to the fortress of Jesus and be restored. God is ready and willing to restore all that has been lost and more due to running with the world.

God loves you and is full of mercy and grace. Allow Him to be your fortress in this fallen world as you wait for His return.

I pray today that you will know Jesus as your Savior; that God will be your strong fortress; that you will live by God’s ways of living; and that you will see God restore all that has been lost in following the world’s ways.