Seasons

And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; (1Chronicles 12: 32a)

I was teaching on the two sources of wealth according to the Bible when God brought this topic of seasons and times on my heart very strongly. It might actually be the distinction between what God does and what the enemy does, as well as the corresponding results.

Did you know that two people can do the same thing in exactly the same way with the same resources yet one becomes exceedingly successful and the other a complete failure?

Yet the difference may only have been in the timing; the season they ventured.

God determines seasons. He alone determines the seasons. It is important to note that not only is He in charge of the seasons, He knows exactly how they will turn out because He is the one working them out. He therefore knows every detail of the tomorrow we have not seen and can guide us into that tomorrow to succeed beyond expectation if we are walking in His revelation.

A disconnect with a season could very easily result in disconnecting with God’s purpose for my life. An erroneous reading of the season I am in in could result in a wasteful life.

God wants us to move in His seasons. He leads us to enjoy the fruitfulness of His seasons. Remember that in Psalm 1 someone who loves God and walks according to His word bears fruit in his season and not every time? That is how God operates.

There are times we become frustrated when we do not see fruit from what we are doing, yet we are doing it the way we have always done and brought much fruit. We may blame ourselves and look for reasons we are not bearing fruit. I know there was a time I invented sins to repent as I could not explain the dryness of the season I was in. Yet what I didn’t know then was that it was just a season, a dry one.

I have wasted resources when I invested in a season that had passed without my knowledge. I remember buying an expensive accordion when my season in music was ending, simply because I was not aware that my involvement with music, singing, composing, could ever end. I ended up giving the same to someone who could not appreciate its value.

Remember when Moses died? The first thing God told Joshua was the obvious, Moses is dead.

In other words, that season is over.

It meant that Joshua was now on new territory. Not only was he the leader, but his leadership was to be completely different from Moses’. Whereas Moses heard from God directly, Joshua had to rely on the priests, Urim and Thummim. Manna would soon stop showing up. He would soon start conquering the lands God had promised and later divide them among the tribes. He was in a season of greater responsibility requiring greater obedience and sensitivity to God’s voice.

In our verse, we see the tribe mentioned knowing the season they were in. And what was it? Saul has been rejected. They therefore realized that his season was over. But they saw even farther. There was an anointed king in David. Rather than whining about the rejection of their king, they moved with the new season and joined David, the king in God’s season.

Obedience is key to our walking in God’s season. People who sought to walk in obedience to God’s revelation always experienced victory. Reading about David makes this truth stick out prominently. No wonder he was said to be fighting God’s battles! He made sure that he sought to know what God wanted him to do, even in repeat situations which to most of us would be too obvious to seek any orders.

Do you realize that Moses was disqualified from Canaan because he followed earlier instructions for a similar challenge? That the steps of a righteous man are ordered of the Lord does not only speak of ministry but in everything that man does, including eating and drinking, and what and where he eats and drinks. That is why Paul said that whatever we do should glorify God; and we know that only obedience does it and presumption is the opposite.

God gives us the power to make wealth because He is the source of everything as the creator. He is therefore able to guide us into situations where He has gathered that wealth for our taking if we are walking with Him.

And that is the difference between God-given wealth and the devil’s wealth.

In Matthew 4 we see the devil tempting Jesus with wealth. He shows Him the wealth and gives Him the conditions for accessing that wealth. The devil turns our focus on wealth because then he can be able to give us some of it as we worship him. And worshipping him does not necessarily mean songs and temples and shrines. Greed is a very high level of worship. And that is why he must show us the riches. We have no capacity of envying something we can’t see. This is why the media is so portent as an instrument of the evil one as it can make us see things we can never normally envision.

In Matthew 6 we see God’s way of giving wealth. In verse 33 we are told to SEEK FIRST His kingdom and righteousness, then these things will be added to us. Here we pursue God and all He stands for. It means forgetting these things (wealth). Then God, the source of all things will make those things to follow you.

And this is where seasons play out. Pursuing God will make you to be in sync with the seasons He has ordered. He then orders everything to fall in place for you. He can call resources from all over to the one who pleases Him. Remember Christ twice calling fish from where they had hidden the whole night? Remember Him calling a coin into a particular fish so that tax could be paid?

But it is the fruit of following God. And it creates a greater hunger to follow God.

What happens when all of us choose to walk in God’s seasons? We become like a well-tuned orchestra. We have hundreds of instruments, from the very loud like cymbals and trumpets, to the softest like oboes and recorders, making a music that resounds from afar.

Yet how do they do it? Each instrumentalist has a music sheet for his part which is different from any other. Then they have one conductor who knows the complete composition.

Our music sheet is the Bible, the whole of it. It gives us the complete instruction concerning our part in the whole. The conductor is the Holy Spirit who guides us to play our part in the orchestra of life as He knows when I should slow down, go softer, or even resound without negatively impacting the performance of the whole.

The devil focuses us on what we are looking for. Then he can detract our vision on the seasons because we look away from the season maker. The career, the money, the car, the A, the spouse, will so engross us that we will forget that we are in an orchestra and start to play our little instrument independent of others. Not only will we make a mess of the band, we will also become very pitiful in our very small world. No wonder we still see people who have made it immersing their lives in drugs and even committing suicide.

God, on the other side, asks us to look at Him and follow Him. Seek to know Him and follow where He leads us. Then He will make all these things FOLLOW us. We will just realize that we have them as we were focused on following the owner of seasons. Incidentally, the bulk of them are priceless; they cannot be bought with money. Health, peace, favor, harmony etc. are some of those things that follow the one who focuses on his music sheet and the conductor. The music flows out of me in the context of the whole orchestra (created order) and also means that I am at peace with not only the composer (creator) and His music but also with the other members of the orchestra. The audience will also appreciate the harmony you are producing because you do not care to shine outside the band.

Someone can appear as kingdom minded as the other until you look beyond appearances. Their actions show that they are solo instrumentalists in the music of life.

Let me take the most obvious case, business. Many people wonder what Jesus meant when He said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich man to get into heaven. Or that one cannot serve God and mammon.

I had a dream where we were travelling with a friend I made in the journey. His wife sat at the back holding these super thin TVs of today. As the bus started moving, a thief snatched the TV from her hands with a timing that never seeks to amaze as they will have disappeared before the bus stops and anyone can get out of the vehicle.

The husband calmed her, even telling her never to tell that to anybody.

As we went on, a hawker came selling vegetables at throwaway prices, and coming from an agricultural area I know there are times there is such a flood of perishable harvest that farmers will leave whatever they do not sell in the market for whoever wants. That is what I thought. I bought one cabbage and a pack of onions.

As we talked, I thought to look beyond the surface of my cabbage. After the first layer, there was nothing but rottenness. I then decided to do the same with the onions and it was the same.

Then my friend commented. ‘Is there any difference between the thief who snatched the TV from this one?’

There is no difference. Both took advantage of a moving bus to steal, only that one thinks he has used his brain more. They are both pursuing money as the devil trains instead of allowing it to be added to them as the follow God.

God is not against profit. He only wants us to play by His rules, righteousness and holiness, which will make gain or profit take a back seat in our trading, though we will many times make more profit than those pursuing it as the end product. And this is where seasons come in. Again allow me to give you situations that happen all the time. And I will remind you the verse that says the wealth of the wicked is kept in reserve for the righteous. Mind you wicked does not necessarily mean the robber or harlot or any other openly wicked according to society. Wicked just means one who does not play by God’s rules, many times one whose main goal is the pursuit of wealth. They are not playing in God’s orchestra but are making their own. This means he is not aware of God’s seasons.

Let us say he gets a car at an incredibly low price. After he buys it he realizes that it was being dumped on him. He decides to repair it and spends a fortune doing it, until he gets fed up after he sees no end to those repairs.

He then decides to look for a gullible person to dump it on. Incidentally he deceives him that it is in very good mechanical shape, something he knows is false from his experience. And this fool falls for his lies and buys it at the irresistible price he was offered without even bargaining.

But the season has changed. The fool later comes to thank the shrewd seller for the car he had disposed as it had never given him any problems since he bought it.

He bought a car and repaired it and then gave it to one who pleased God, thinking that he was defrauding him.

Or someone buys a dairy cow at a premium and it decides to be barren. Year in year out he pursues every angle for a solution that never comes.

Being a shrewd businessman he decides to dump it on a hapless farmer by convincing him that he is selling so that he can take his child to university, even cheating him that it is expecting and he couldn’t have sold it were not for the crisis.

But the season had changed and the barrenness has ended. The new fool actually buys an expectant cow at a throwaway price, a thing that the shrewd could not understand. This is because God releases those secrets to those who are walking according to His standards, and especially revelation.

From observation you will realize that the most successful businesspeople are those who do not go by the rules. They take many idiotic risks that will succeed beyond belief. Others are very gullible and entrust their decisions to enemies who pretend to be friends showing them where to throw away their moneys, only for the toxic counsel to backfire.

I repeat that God owns the seasons. The main reason some things succeed while others fail might be for the simple reason that one was on the right side of the season while the other was on the wrong side.

That is why the Bible says that the race is not for the swift or the battle for the strong. God and His seasons determine them. That is the reason being on God’s team will always ensure success whatever we do, only that it is not success gauged by temporal standards. But it is sure success, success that everybody can see even in the temporal realm due to the eternal element in it.

Isaac was told not to do the logical thing in a drought (going to Egypt). He plants and harvests a hundred fold. The widow of Sarepath sacrifices the only food to feed the prophet and has enough food for years. Gehazi refuses to let all that free money to go and harvests leprosy. Remember Elisha reminded him about seasons?

The Lord’s Prayer deals with seasons. It is a prayer that heaven’s seasons operate on earth. Your name be hallowed on earth as it is being done in heaven. Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Your will be done on earth as it is being done in heaven.

We pray that because we pursue it and not simply to say that we prayed.

And it is the reason the Christian life is very simple. We just look at heaven and copy what we see. Jesus said He only did what He saw His Father doing. And there is nothing wholesale in that.

Remember the beggar at the gate beautiful. Do you realize that Jesus may have passed him there a many times as He went to the temple during His ministry years, and even those early years? Yet why did He not heal him then? It was not the season for it. And heaven’s seasons go with God’s purpose. He was healed when he was so that five thousand people could accept Christ after clearly seeing what He can do.

Several times we see the term, ‘fullness of time’ in the Bible to denote those times where the season was ripe.

I will mention some demonic breakthroughs some mistake for God’s.

The first is gambling. Do you realize that if God wanted His people to get gambling money they would win all of it? Why? God knows everything. God knows which team will win which match or league ten years to come. He knows the combination that will win any jackpot of any lottery all over the world.

Suppose He uses the lottery to provide. Won’t His people win all jackpots? Won’t prophets win all those predictions?

You see, God determines the outcome of every lot cast. That is what the Bible says. That is the clearest evidence that gambling is not of God. If He were involved, His people could have been the automatic winners of the fool’s games.

The other reason gambling, even sport betting can’t be of God is the greed it promotes. Not only greed, but also idleness and laziness as people are waiting for the big break. Plus the waste before that break can be accessed, if ever. People are betting away their investments, their college fees, rent money, food money, etc. I have seen young men taking their expensive phones to Shylocks to get betting money. Many have committed suicide when they lost their fees in betting and can’t face their parents. Others have done the same as they gambled their salaries and are unable to pay their rents for months, among many other things.

The blessing of the Lord gives wealth, and adds no sorrow. Does gambling do that?  And I will not even mention the end game for the winners of those jackpots.

But pastors are scared of preaching this from their pulpits because many of their members are into it. And they of course won’t mind if the jackpot is brought to their churches. Remember sometimes ago I posted about pastors applauding a brewer taking their members (worship leaders) for training in secularism and its music and the winners take home a lot of money. And they do not even realize the contradiction between worship and drunkenness a brewer stands for.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. (1Timothy 6: 6 – 11)

The other is the planting of the seed to get returns from God. In other words we give so that God repays at higher interest. The simple description of what we do, and pastors preach is trading with God.

That we can never out-give God is not in question. That our giving opens doors for God to minister to us is also not debatable.

But from the Bible, we give in response to God as opposed to forcing a response from God. We can never manipulate Him by our giving. Even the thought itself is blasphemous.

Only obedience will open the door for God to respond to my giving.

What I mean is that only a giving that is prompted by my obedience to His revelation moves Him, and not even in the way we think.

Look at the Bible. A few times we read that people were restrained from giving because what they had given was much more than was required. And they were not giving to receive. They were giving because they had experienced God. They were simply responding to their experience of God.

You see, what we know about God is more powerful a driver than what we can receive from Him. Remember Job confessing, ‘though He slay me, yet will I trust Him’? That is the kind of relationship that should drive our giving. It is worship and not business that drives our giving.

Reaping from giving using business terms is clearly demonic, even when it is given in church. Reaping from the same shows that we are receiving from the one who shows us the gift as a bait to cause us to do what will drive us from God, especially if he can convince us that it is God doing it.

Ananias gave most and died. I wonder what those who preach about giving explain that, that someone gives God over 90% and God kills him. A widow gives the smallest coins and is said to have given more than the ones who had given a lot of money.

New Testament giving is giving in obedience to God’s leading, not giving 10% or even 50%. It is being in tune with God enough to know not only what to give but also where to give. It is not a giving directed by the pastor or any other spiritual leader but by God through His word and Holy Spirit. And we know that the Holy Spirit will never trade with us.

Our worship is incomplete if we do not give. But it is not our giving that defines our worship. Our obedience is what defines our worship. And that obedience leaves nothing behind, even giving.

The toxic element of this doctrine as preached is that it minimizes sin. We can comfortably cover our sins if we only gave. We can cover disobedience or rebellion by giving something good. Reminds me of the indulgences Martin Luther fought and the fact that the modern church is rushing there at breakneck speed through this doctrine of giving that does not address other aspects of obedience.

That offends God. And God fights it with His seasons. He gives leanness as He says in His word.

Is God the one guiding your seasons or are you in charge of your destiny and just need Him to add power to what you have purposed? Do you worship God through your giving or do you seek to manipulate God through it?

You see, even acceptable giving is because it is given in season and not necessarily generously. And I know it will be clearer to you when you jog your memory a bit.

What is your most memorable moment of generosity? Was it when you received the most expensive gift or when the gift met your most pressing need?

You are very hungry and some distance from a place you can get food. You are so weak from the hunger and so far from home that you must eat to get strength to walk home. You pray that God sorts you out.

Then out of nowhere a friend you have not seen for long appears and is so excited to see you. He does not have much money so he takes you to a cheap roadside kiosk and buys food so that you may have time to talk.

Or you are being evicted because you have not paid rent for some time, and the rent is not even much. Just when the landlord is about to start throwing your things out you receive a text message that you have received some money. You stop him and ask for a few minutes to go and withdraw his rent.

Maybe you have travelled and lost everything you had. You are stranded in a strange land. You do not know what to do as even the language is foreign. Then out of nowhere someone seems to understand your dilemma and offers to host you and help you recover your documents.

It is the timeliness of the gift (season) that has a greater impact than the size of the gift. And that is the greatest difference between God’s gift and the devil’s bribe. And it will also help us know who guides our giving.

Giving in season is itself not dramatic for the giver however earthmoving it may be to the recipient. Even when it is sacrificial, it is so because of the obedience element as it is done in response to God’s promptings.

It does not make the recipient indebted to the giver because the giver responded to God. Many times he was not even aware of the crisis in the recipient’s life that he resolved as he just responded to God. He does not even expect any gratitude. There are times I have been supported with clear orders not to offer any gratitude and offer it to God instead. That is what giving in obedience, which is giving in season does. And I also feel very uncomfortable when I am thanked after giving in response to God’s promptings because I am very sure it does not proceed from me. You do not even feel exploited if someone you have so helped insults you because God and not them was the focus of your ministry.

If someone must appreciate your giving or assistance, if they must tell others how generous you are and the kind of pit you rescued them from, examine your heart. It is very possible you are giving by the devil’s rule book concerning giving. He is the one who focuses us on the gift.

I hope this message gets through to each one of us so that we will start walking in God’s seasons for each of us as opposed to being guided by people to fulfill their cravings, however holy they might be. That we will listen to know what God will have us do in whatever situation He places us.

We must read the Bible and stop the laziness of entrusting the study of the same to others, however spiritual or mature they may be. We must listen to God’s voice for ourselves instead of leaving that part to experts, however accurately they seem to be hearing. This is because it is impossible for them to hear my instruction and theirs at the same time.

You are responsible for your spirituality. You are answerable to God for hearing His voice or not. You can never defer it to anyone else.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: (John 10: 27)

Are you Christ’s sheep? Do you hear His voice?