We are in a change of seasons. Not only individually, but we are to go through a change of seasons corporately. There’s something in the lesson of the natural seasons that is so important for us to understand. It is important when God leads us into a different season not to fight to get back into the former one. We’re not losing something. When God takes us into a different season, we’re gaining. For too long the body of Christ has thought, “That past season was so wonderful, and now it’s gone. We’ve got to get back to that.” That is stupid thinking. It’s a scheme of Satan to cause ignorance. There are four seasons in the natural, and there are at least that many in the spiritual. Every season has a reason in Christ. Personally, you may be in a season of abundance when the Lord’s voice is clear and concise and beautiful. Enjoy it. The season will change. You may be in a season of dryness. That season too will change. During a season of dryness, the roots go deeper into the person, in fact because of the dryness. So seasons are a necessary component of our journey. They’re not to be disdained. They are to be welcomed. Being able to discern those seasons will help our hearts to understand why God is doing what He is doing and not to think that God has abandoned us because it’s different than it was yesterday.
Summer is about to end. Fall is about to come. I welcome fall, It is my favorite season, but we do not have fall all year around. Cool weather will break in, and death will begin to come. We understand the necessity of that: before there can be His new life, there has to be a death. It’s always true. God showed it to us right in the seasons. With every place of God’s increase, there is first a death. It is hard to see that increase in winter, but it is happening if we are staying with Him. None of what I’m saying is true if we abandon Him or if we just live in ourselves. It’s true only if we will cling to Him, hold on to Him, and allow Him to be the Lord of the seasons, because He is. If we will stop fighting for lordship of the seasons and let him be the Lord of the season, it will go way better. If you’re in a season of testing, don’t fight it. Enjoy it. But that demands a rewiring.
I have recognized the coming season change in the spiritual the last few weeks, just like in the natural. There’s a coming season change corporately among us. The signs of it are already popping up. The fieriness of this season is going to be a main aspect of it. That fire is meant to establish the love of God in Christ, to deepen the love for Jesus Christ in us. Again, my focus and God’s focus is upon the person of Christ, not one another. First things first: the person of Christ. So I welcome this season. We can’t make it happen. We can only welcome it. Welcome the Lord in this season to do all that He wants to do, including so much that we have no clue about. Believe me when I say this, it will be tailored to us as a people, and it will be tailored to us individually, and we will not be able to pick and choose. Don’t ever try to do this. Don’t ever pick and choose the battle you want God to fight in you. You have no right to do that. Don’t tell God what you want Him to do. That’s a Lordship issue. If we do, we are still lord. We want God to do this and that in us, and this and that in our congregations, and we can’t see our pride, our arrogance, in that. We can’t see that it’s by His doing. But if we allow Him to be Lord of the seasons, He will accomplish in His timing the fruit and the harvest that He has in mind.