The Season Changer
By Abraham Israel
God is a king-maker and is in the constant buisness of doing it consistently in every generation. God chooses people in to his selection program, then anoints them and then takes in to wildreness training.
Choosing has been done before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4). In the bigger picture God wants all the people in the world to be saved and calls them all in to fellowship with His only begotten Son through the gospel of the kingdom of God (1 Tim 2:3-42 Peter 3:9). Many are called but few are chosen (Matt 22:14). How? Those who choose Jesus by accepting Him as their Lord and Saviour of their lives become chosen candidates before the foundation of the world. How?, you may ask me again. Salvation was not conceived in our own mind, but it was God who offered it for us to receive His predetermined mercy, grace and love unconditionally through it. It was God's own idea to save us from sin, sickness and death through the substitutionary death of His Son on the cross and He was the one who has called us for a heavenly feast and after life (Isaiah 53:4-6; John 3:16; Luke 15:20-24). It was God who initiated salvation for us and thus it was He who called us as a chosen candidate in his list (1 Cor 1:30; 1 John 4:10). We who chose Him have become chosen. In other words, we just responded to God's initiative by taking a good choice of accepting Salvation which was prepared and offered by God.
When we have become a chosen canditate in the Army of God on earth by becoming born-again (1 Peter 1:23), then God sees the hunger in us for Himself and then according to it anoints and baptises us with the Holy Spirit (Luke 6:21; Isaiah 44:3; Matt 3:11, 16-17; Acts 11:15-17).
After the anointing comes the real fight against the world, flesh and the devil [i.e. the three unholy trinity]. See what happened to Jesus after he was anointed by the Holy Spirit, the Bible says, "12 Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. 13 And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him." (Mark 1:12-13). Satan comes after all those people who are hungry for God and are anointed upon by the Spirit Himself. This is the reason the Holy Spirit drives all such hungry people of God in to wilderness experience of loneliness and God's boot camp experience. Wilderness in each one of our lives might be different. It might be a sickness, joblessness, poverty, hunger, sinful bondages, powerlessness, loneliness or even lack of satisfaction and meaninglessness in one's life. But wilderness will be allowed by God only for the period of testing time, not one minute more or less than God's appointed time (1 Cor 10:13). So be positively courageous and look to the reward at the end of it rather than focusing on the harship of this wilderness testing time (James 5:10-11; Heb 12:2).
Take heart, it cannot be an endless time until we die on this earth as some believe wrongly. It is a set time as we see in the lives of the men of God like Job, Moses, David, Joseph, Daniel and even Jesus. It is for our good that this wilderness is allowed so that once we become refined, we not only would have by then destroyed the unholy trinity of the world, flesh and the devil completely in our lives, but also will be ready to do it in other's lives too as a general in the army of God (Job 23:10; Ps 66:10; Is 48:10).
While in the wilderness we would have received enough grace upon grace from Jesus, by exposing to Jesus about our weakness and depending on His supernatural power to deal the spiritual enemies in our lives (John 1:16; 2 Cor 12:8-10). After the wilderness comes the period of reigning over sin, sickness and death in all the realms of human existence because of the inherent grace deposit done by Jesus through the wilderness in us (Rom 5:17, 21). This is the real place of royal excellence that God wants all of His sons and daugthers to attain, this is the place where the child of God becomes a mature son to be always led by the voice and instruction of the Spirit (Rom 8:14). O what a blessedness of heaven on earth!
What have we learnt from the above exposition of His Word? God has a season for everything in our lives. A season for us to dwell in the wilderness and a season to reign as kings under the authority of the king of kings who is Jesus. The Bible beautifully says about the life of Joseph who went through this same wilderness experience before he became a ruler of the entire world goverment in Egypt, "16 Moreover He called for a famine in the land; He destroyed all the provision of bread. 17 He sent a man before them—Joseph—who was sold as a slave. 18 They hurt his feet with fetters, he was laid in irons. 19 Until the time that His word came to pass, The word of the LORD tested him. 20 The king sent and released him, The ruler of the people let him go free. 21 He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his possessions, 22 To bind his princes at his pleasure, and teach his elders wisdom." (Ps 105:16-22).
Here in the above Scriptures we see that just for a promotion of a single man to be a kingly ruler in His predetermined plan, God called a season of famine upon the whole earth. He even destroyed the provision of bread to orchestrate His plan and purpose for a man and a household along with him. Before God could do all these mighty things for a man, he made the man Joseph experience wilderness continiously for years together before the appointed time of God came for the prison slave in the wilderness to become a kingly ruler over the whole world in a matter of hours. The very word of vision and the voice of God that instructed Joseph to await for a future kingly lifestyle, tested him through the wilderness. It was this word of the Lord [i.e. consiousness of God's voice and presence (Gen 39:2, 9, 21; 41:38)] that purified him and made him conquer the world, flesh and the devil in the season of his wilderness. Every word of God that we have received in our lives has a set time to get fulfilled. On the set time God begins to change season of wilderness in to season of reigning over sin, sickness and death. This is the reason God is called as the season changer of our lives. Once God sets us in authority, we wil be able to bind the prince and his associates of the power of air and thus teach the people of God about the wisdom to bind it in their lives too (Eph 2:2; 3:8-10; Matt 12:28-29; 18:18). O what a priviledge!
If you have been going through a season of wilderness in your life, take heart for the time of reigning with the grace of Christ in your life is one day nearer than before. You are on a pathway to greatness and excellence. One of these days you will confess experientially from your heart like the Apostle John saying, "4 ...Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 6 and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." (Rev 1:4-6). Yes God is changing your season ahead and you will be set as a king under the King of kings very soon (Rev 19:16). Praise the Lord!
"The winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions [of the wilderness] sanctified, prepare the soul for [kingly] glory." —Richard Sibbes
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