Our Time is Now
In September of 2018, I wrote an article on the importance of our paying attention to the seasons and stages of our lives. It is critical that we understand what God is doing around us generally and where we are at in life currently. Knowing these realities helps us respond appropriately to the events and opportunities God provides for us specifically, at any given time. The following are a couple of key paragraphs from that article that summarize seasons and stages.
In the introduction to his book, Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life, Chuck Swindoll suggests that there are recurring seasons to life that come to us by the direction of our Creator, the One who governs all of life. “Each of the four seasons offers fresh and vital insights for those who take the time to look and think… As each three-month segment of every year holds its own mysteries and plays its own melodies, offering insights and smells, feelings and fantasies altogether distinct, so it is in the seasons of life. The Master is neither mute nor careless as He alters our times and changes our seasons (bolding mine). How wrong to trudge blindly and routinely through a lifetime of changing seasons without discovering answers to the new mysteries and learning to sing new melodies! Seasons are designed to deepen us, to instruct us in the wisdom and ways of our God. To help us grow strong…like a tree planted by the rivers of water.”
We also recognize that there are a series of life stages that most of us move through as we live out God’s plan for our lives. We begin as children, then become teenagers, young adults, newly married, young couples with children, middle-aged couples with teenagers, empty nesters and finally senior citizens. Each life stage has its own set of challenges, pressures, and rewards, and therefore shapes us accordingly. It also tends to color the way we view the world and how we relate to God.
Both our season of life and our stage of life provide valuable context to words we receive and the life circumstances experience.
In general, we know God is moving in the earth constantly, reconciling the world to Himself, moving sovereignly through individuals and groups of people to accomplish His will and purposes. He forgives sins, heals people of sickness and emotional pain while freeing them from the harassment of the enemy. These all are available to us by virtue of Jesus’ death and resurrection when we put our faith and trust in Him. Once saved Jesus invites us into the life of discipleship, where we discover who we are and what it is He created us to do. However, our enemy, the devil, does all he can to rob, kill and destroy the good work God desires to do both in and through us. Unaware of the seasons and stages of life, and the ways the enemy seeks to come against us, we sometimes find ourselves stuck in apathy and/or discouragement about the promises of God and the dreams He has planted within us. As an unwanted consequence, we find ourselves idling along for weeks, months or even years, waiting for God to do something. If that describes you in any way, I have good news. Your time is now.
Over the last month’s God has revealed we are in a new season. Through personal study, a number of prophetic words, and dreams by myself and others, God has revealed: “our time is now.” For Scriptures, I would take us back to Isaiah 43:18-19, which speaks of the “new thing” God is doing. And like the kingdom of God, it is here now but we have not yet experienced it in its fullness. To the Isaiah Scripture, I would add Mark 11:22-24 and Romans 4:16-17 because they inform how we are to position ourselves in this new season. The key phrases are “all things for which you pray and ask, believe you have received them” (Mark 11:24) and “even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist” (Romans 4:17). The shift is primarily attitudinal, in that we are recognizing God has already done something and He is calling us to get in alignment with it in our prayers and our actions. I would offer the following 4 Practical Shifts for this new season we are in.
• Pray as if we have received what God has already spoken/revealed
• Believe what God has spoken/promised
• Declare God’s Word, Logos, and Rhema
• Act in faith aligning ourselves with what God has promised, we see the Father doing
On Friday night August 9, 2019, we are going to gather at Thanksgiving Church corporately to worship Jesus the King and to realign our hearts with this new season. There will be an opportunity to receive prayer for healing and a fresh word for this next season of your life. My belief is God is desiring to awaken old dreams, promises, and prophetic words and add to them with fresh revelation of what He is doing right now. As individual followers of Jesus, and as the body of Christ, we are called to represent the King and His Kingdom in a unique and significant way (2 Corinthians 5:20). Come be refreshed and renewed. Your time is now.
Author
Pastor Bruce is the Executive Director of God's Living Stones. He lives in Omaha, NE, with his wife Barb. They have two adult children.
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