May 13

Joel 2:25‑26
 
“I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, My great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and My people shall never be ashamed” —Joel 2:25, 2625And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. 26And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed. (Joel 2:25‑26).
THIS is God’s promise to the restored backslider, to the one who has left his first love, but who returns at last to the Lord in self-judgment, confessing all his past failures and pleading the value of the precious blood of Christ which settled for all his sins, past, present, and future. God has promised to make up in His own way for all the loss that came in through wandering from Him; the revived heart finding everything in God will confess at last that the Lord has dealt wondrously with him.
“Thou know’st the way to bring me back, —
My fallen spirit to restore;
Oh, for Thy truth and mercy’s sake,
Forgive, and bid me sin no more:
The ruins of my soul repair,
And make my heart a house of prayer.
Ah, give me, Lord, the tender heart,
That trembles at the approach of sin;
A godly fear of sin impart;
Implant and root it deep within,
That I may dread Thy gracious power,
And never dare to offend Thee more.”
—Charles Wesley.