Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Today’s blog is on a subject that is going to take me a few blogs to address. I was given this word while ministering in Wichita, Kansas last week. I was not able to record the message, but I feel it is in imperative that I write what God gave me for us to grasp hold of all that God is doing today and for us not to be bound in some season of our past.
We have come through a very interesting season. The year of 2020 and now into 2021 has proven to challenge us all with need to embrace the moment and not to hold on to what was yesterday. I believe that even what the enemy has intended for evil, God is turning for our good. We must look to God and trust God in every season of our lives. God has not called us to be someone we are not, but He has called us to be who we are today, but who we are today does not usually mean holding on to who we were or what we were doing yesterday. The essence of who we are has been seen in every season of our lives, but in every season of our lives we have had to embrace new things and new ways of doing things to be relevant to our today situation. King David was anointed with a kingly anointing as a boy, but he had to embrace being a shepherd, a delivery man of a few cheeses, a giant slayer, a servant in the courts of Saul, one who fled from Saul with honor, a leader who transformed lives, and ultimately the King of Israel. In that process, David always had the anointing of a king, but his rolls in life required him to be flexible in his function in life. In all that he did, he functioned as a king in forms that didn’t look like a king. It was not a matter of attaining to a position. It was a matter of always functioning in his world of today for the sake of the world he found himself in.
In every season of our lives, we must find our proper role for that season. Last week God took me in my mind through the many seasons of my life. I realized that in many ways I have lived several different lives. In all the seasons of my life I have found that there is good and there is bad, but God reveals His wonder and life in every season. Though who I am has not changed in them, I have had to be relevant to each, and every, season of my life to be effective in who I am in that season. I believe that every season of our lives leads to a greater glory for God’s name, but we must find ourselves in our present season and not stuck in some season of our past.
Moses was a man of some significant seasons in life. When he was born there was a great opposition to his birth. His mother had to hide him in a basket in the river Nile to save his life. He was discovered and raised by the daughter of a Pharoah in Egypt. The circumstance of his life had been greatly altered, but the purpose of his life had not. He was raised living the life of an Egyptian prince in his world. Moses had the heart of a deliverer and something inside of him desired to see the justice of God prevail for his flesh and blood people, the people of Israel. When he was a grown man, he observed the burdens of slavery and oppression that were upon his own people. One day he saw an Egyptian beating one of the Hebrew slaves and Moses killed the Egyptian. He was not welcomed by his fellow Hebrews for such a task, for they saw him as an Egyptian prince. He had the heart of a deliverer, but he needed to discover a season of becoming a true Hebrew. I believe he needed to become a Hebrew, a sojourner who knows God as Father and himself as a son. He needed to know that God was more important than merely the power to be a deliverer for God’s people. Moses found himself in a circumstance of having to flee into the desert of Midian. The name Midian implies judgment, but I believe that the forty years of Moses being in the desert helped Him find the true judgment of God’s love. Moses was forty when he fled Egypt and he was eighty years old when God called him back to Egypt to be a deliver for God’s people. Moses found himself living a seemingly different life, but the destiny and purpose of Moses remained true to who God had made and called Him to be.
It was given to Moses to be raised as an Egyptian prince, along with all the seasons that required. I am sure there were many facets to the upbringing and aspects of Moses’ life as a prince. Like me, he could probably find several lifetimes of experiences, testimonies, and memories in that forty-year chapter of his journey. The wilderness years of Moses were not less significant, they were significant for the increasing journey of destiny in his life. Moses could no longer carry the staff of an Egyptian leader, he had to learn to carry the rod of a shepherd of sheep. That rod was not a rod of great vision, it was a rod of great humility. It was a rod of great service. The sheep that he cared for were the sheep of his wife’s father and not a flock of his own. Those who have personal responsibility today are the fields where God harvests the tools of tomorrow’s authority.
As I write this blog, I know that we have all had to learn to carry the staff for every season of our lives. The staff that we carried yesterday will not work for the season of today. We must discover the rod of today and we must fully embrace it in our hands to be relevant for what God is doing today. I believe that 2020-2021 is a significant season for us as leaders in God’s church. It may seem like a season of judgment, but I believe it is a season to know the judgment of God’s love in a greater way. The season has changed, and we must find the rod of today. We cannot hold on to the rod of yesterday and expect to be relevant to the task that is at hand. God was preparing Moses for a greater rod than the rod that he carried in the wilderness, but the rod that he carried in the wilderness was essential for him to find himself in the place for receiving a greater rod for the deliverance of God’s people. I will write more on this but consider that the rod in your hand is not the rod that you carried yesterday. It is the rod of today. If we hold on to the rod that we held on to yesterday, we will bind those we are called to influence in this world to a season of the past. God is the God of NOW. He is, He was, and He will be, but He must be found today! The rod in our hands must be the rod of today and not something that we held on to yesterday. Even if we had to struggle to learn how to carry it in the past, the rod of yesterday is merely a place of comfort in our presence. We cannot be bound to what has become comfortable in our hands. We must be liberated by a fresh experience with God in every season of our lives that enables us to lay hold of the rod that is relevant for the season of our day. God wants us to embrace the challenge for our season of today!
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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