Times and seasons

Scripture Ref: Ecclesiastes  3:1

Introduction
Seasons are the key to breakthrough. The Lord makes everything beautiful in its time. God has ordained seasons for every one of us.
A Season is the specific moment when God opens a door. Season is what the Bible calls the fullness of time. Your season is what carries your favour. Season empowers you with speed. Season is when you encounter an open heaven.

Do as the occasion demands
When you understand about times and seasons, you’ll never miss your visitation. However, it is not enough to just know that your season has come, you should also know what to do as the occasion demands (1Sam 10:7). The tribe of Issachar understood their times and what Israel ought to do.

Signposts/signals that lead to new seasons in our lives
1.Opportunity (Gen 41:14, 40)
-Every time that God wants to usher you into a new season, He presents you with an opportunity. When you embrace the opportunity, it will open a new season for you.
-An opportunity to interpret Pharaoh’s dream ushered Joseph into his new season. He left prison knowing he would come back but little did he know that he would not return. Joseph was made the second in command in Egypt.
-God does not give all the details. He never gave Joseph an elaborate plan of how things would unfold before he left the prison. When we obey one instruction, it leads us to another, and as you progressively obey you realize that God was actually taking you beyond that instruction.
-Never despise the smallest of opportunities.
-God gave Moses an opportunity to be brought up in the palace and he got the best education of the day. God knew that Moses would be the one to introduce scripture. He was to write Genesis- Deuteronomy. Moses could not get the best education with his relatives as they were slaves. Moses knew that God took him there for a season and that the Palace was not the destiny for him.

2.You lose interest in your current season (Hebrews 11:24)
-When your season has ended in a place, everybody is excited about the place but you. Moses with all this class, felt that his season in the Palace was over. Imagine what the brick layers thought of him when he went to stay with them. Sometimes you don’t need to listen to people, listen to your inner man and follow God’s instructions. You can outgrow a place.
-Moses had to leave by faith. He had received a secular education and he was now moving to priesthood. He met Jethro who taught him how to handle himself as a priest

3.Sense an unusual urgency to pray/have a burden to pray (Exodus 3:7)
-In prayer God wants you to birth to a new season. Prophecy is not automatic; you give birth to it in prayer.
-When the time drew nigh, the Israelites took their prayers to another level that God heard. After so many years, it is now after they prayed that the Lord heard.
-1Kings 18:44- When the rain was about to come down, Elijah put his head between his knees and prayed. He knew it was the season for rain.
-1Sam 1 & 2- Every year they would go to Shiloh to sacrifice to the Lord. It came to pass that, when God wanted to usher Hannah into a new season, she felt an unusual urgency to pray. When everybody was leaving, she stayed, she prayed until she gave birth to her new season.

4.Closed doors
-When doors close, its because another door has opened. God doesn’t open many doors; He opens one door at a time so that you don’t get confused. Closed doors are not missed opportunities. He’ll first close the former before opening another one.
-Warning: When God leaves a place, leave with Him. One time Elijah was being fed by ravens and drinking the water from the brook, suddenly the Lord dried the brook, and God said it is time to move. Anointed as Elijah was, he did not lay hands on the brook, he moved on.
-Most times we have fear of the unknown and are used to the status quo, but whenever God is changing your season, move with Him.
-Exodus 40:36-38 Whenever the cloud moved, Israel moved. When the cloud stopped, they stopped. That means that you don’t go ahead of God or are left behind; you only move with Him.

Conclusion
May God help us to understand the seasons in our life and to do as the occasion demands.