Redeeming the Times and recovering Lost Opportunity! The Lord has been speaking to me about this one phrase Redeeming the Times. Were just going to begin reading in (Ephesians 5:14.) Awake, you who sleep. Arise from the dead and Christ will give you light. Awake-its a call to an awakening. Its a call to revival, and revival simply means to live again. We need to wake up spiritually. Something happens when there is an awakening, we arise from the dead, and Christ will give you the light. So the call is to awake, and thats what God is saying prophetically right now. Awake out of compromise. Awake out of religion and tradition. Awake to spiritual hunger. Awake to righteousness or a desire to have an encounter with God again. Awake us. Wake us up, oh God. Wake us up Holy Spirit so that we can know what revival is. When I read the word awake, I started thinking about what it means to wake up. The Sleeping Giant I remember a vision that I read by a man that was part of a great revival in Argentina. He simply had a vision of a large giant that was covered in rubble (think of Jack and the Beanstalk). This giant was lying in rubble and ash, and he saw all of these small demons, but it wasnt the demons or the things holding him down. The giant was asleep, but every once and a while, the giant would try to wake up. When he did try to wake up, the demons would flee in the darkness and start terror. However, he would not be able to sit up fully, and the giant would fall back to sleep. As soon as he would fall back to sleep, the demons would come rushing back in. The giant is the sleeping church. God wants His church to wake up. God wants His giant to arise and take its place, but weve been lulled to sleep spiritually. Paul begins his message about redeeming the time. He begins the message with a call to revival, a call to awakening, a call to live again, a call to wake up out of compromise, and say I need an encounter. Come Holy Spirit. I need to live again. I need the spirit of revival. Awake and Christ will give you light. We go on to read in Verse 15, See then that you walk circumspectly. See that you walk carefully, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. The days are short. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Redeeming the time has to do with walking in the will and the purpose of God-understanding what the will and the purpose of God is. The Blood of the Lamb Verse 18 says, Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled the Spirit. So, right in the midst of this call to awaken is this message of redeeming the time. God says be filled with the Spirit. The key to revival and awakening is an encounter with the Holy Spirit-to constantly keep being filled with the Holy Spirit. I stopped and read that phrase again in Verse 16, redeeming the time, and I thought to myself, How can we redeem time? The word redeeming means to buy back an opportunity that was lost. Redeeming the times means to be careful to take advantage of every opportunity that God gives us. I dont know about you, but Ive had times of hopelessness, regret, and despair over opportunities that I know I had and missed. If I could have done it differently, I would have even went back in time and said, Help me, Lord. This happens in our life this way many times. And I was thinking how can I redeem time? God, is it possible time that has been lost has been given back to me? When I started thinking about redeeming the time, I realized that God was speaking to me about the power of redemption. Now when we talk about redemption, we use the word redeemed. We go back to the moment that the blood of Jesus washed us and cleansed us. We remember the day when we came into salvation and were redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Thank You, God for redemption. I remember the day when I was saved and born again. The Lord was speaking to me about not just the cleansing and forgiveness through the blood, but that weve been redeemed. Theyve been singing in heaven, Weve been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. I thought about what that means. I know what it means in the context of how the blood of Jesus has bought back, and I think about the free gift of salvation. But the Lord was speaking about a whole lot more than just the gift of redemption that came in the moment of salvation. He was saying, I want to redeem and buy back every opportunity that has been lost because you werent careful to take advantage of the opportunity that was presented before you, because the days and the time are short. I need to add days or I need to accelerate time. I started thinking these thoughts and meditating on the phrase, redeeming the time. Back to the Future Immediately I thought that even in the Lord, we could rewrite history. I remember a pastor that told me the most amazing story. It really got me thinking about redeeming the time. Not just redeeming the time and rewriting history, but redeeming the time has to do with acceleration, where God can do in six minutes what would take six years. Elijah had a supernatural season of acceleration and outran the chariots of Ahab. God can come upon me and cause me to do more in six minutes than six years, because a thousand years is as a day to the Lord. The way that time works in the Spirit and the way that time works in eternity are so different. If God has to add days, God can add days. The most amazing thing is God caused the sun to stand still. Theres still a day missing. God said, Im not done yet. Ive got to stop the sun for Joshua, because there is something that I need to get done. This is the purpose of God. The Scripture says we can taste of the powers of the future age, and now we can even go into the future and taste time. Heb 6:5) TODD BENTLEY
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 16:15:13 +0000
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