COLLISION OF C'S

The book of Ecclesiastes begins thus:

1 There is a season (a time appointed) for everything and a time for every delight and event or purpose under heaven-

I want the reader to pay attention to the ‘appointed time.’ In the Hebrew the word used for an appointed time is ‘Moed.’ I also want us to define the difference between a time and a season. A few years ago, I found myself on a ministry trip to Israel. We managed to get permission to hold a meeting in the garden of Gethsemane. It was here, after a period of prayer, that the Lord showed me the difference. I had not been wondering about the difference and neither did I pose the question. The Lord showed me through the visitation of a small tortoise that sped across my path, just in front of my feet.

Seasons, are defined by the rotation of the earth around the sun. In these seasons we mark off, generally quarters of the year. They change in climate and bring with them their own peculiar nature. We have no choice in what they bring. The seasons can bring life and decimation. They can bring fruit and crop, famine and feast. Every year is different. Though we have no choice in what the seasons bring to us, we can as we have found out, influence what they bring. Certain crops, flora and fauna, emit their beauty, fragrance and nutrition to the living world. Mans influence on our God given ecosystem has affected its delicate balance, and now we are reaping the consequences.

Times, however, are a little more unreliable because they are based on conditions. For example; certain flowers can bloom out of season, simply because the conditions are right. We can have a warm spell in winter and spring can seem to come a little earlier. Sometimes a child can be born earlier than expected, all down to the conditions that surround it in the ecosystem of its mother.

We speak, as believers in being in a season of something. Seasons have time limitations put upon them, but times and event come become the conditions are right and there is not designated any length for them.

Let us now look at the season or time we are in now.

Every believer in Christ, by that I mean a follower of a Messiah Jesus, by consent is acceptant of His life and allows Christ to become sovereign. The new believer immediately consents to give up their life in exchange for the one that God has for them by being born again of the spirit, allowing a transformation that will give us access into realm and presence of God. Whereas once, we did not understand Him, we can now learn to. When God was far away He is now near; when we were far-off, by being under the ownership of Satan, we now because of God’s great and merciful purchase - the redemptive sacrifice of Lamb of God, belong to Him.

Our fallen nature began the process of regeneration and rejuvenation. God began to make us or remake us into who we should be or once were. In order for us to become malleable in the hand of the great potter, our earthen vessels must be emptied of ourselves. The process is hard, because the old contents are claggy, and like the tea that stains the inside of a cup, it needs to be scoured, making the inside of the cup squeaky clean. The process of this remake, will depend on what purpose the potter deems for his new creation. I think of the extraction of the old man as being like marmite; it just does not want to come out of the jar. I apologise to those who don’t like marmite. I love it, and have it most days on some homemade bread. I have developed a technique now that gets the marmite out of the jar without it falling off the knife and coating the outside of the jar.