SEASON OF DISCIPLINE

Season of Discipline

Matt. 6:31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What
shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these
things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have
need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

With all the money messages and the prosperity sermons out there, you
would almost be inclined to believe that no matter where you are in Christ,
you should be financially rich! Many preachers sound as though they have
been rich all their lives and you should be able to ask God for any
amount of money you want and it will magically appear in your mailbox!! But it's
so peculiar to me how everyone of them had to go through a season of discipline
before they ended up in their season of plenty! You see, God did not
immediately give the children of Israel the promise land. He took them
through 3 seasons. A season of not enough, a season of just enough, and a season
of plenty. I believe that we as believers face these seasons today. Why?
Because this is how God disciplines us. Now, you will rarely hear this on TV
or in conferences where a man that has gotten rich off the people of God
is making you feel less of a Christian if you don't have enough money to
to plant a huge seed! They call it a curse! But its probably not a curse, it may just be
your season of testing. I don't believe God will cause us to go totally without, but
I do believe that God will take us through a season of testing just as he
did his chosen people in the wilderness. Their every move had to be dictated
by God because they had no direction. That is how God wants us that are
chosen by him in the beginning. He totally blocks our sense of direction and
sometimes cuts off our supply so we will depend totally upon him to work our
own ability out of us. Just as a child depends upon his parents, so must we
depend on God. Then, we move into another season of God giving us enough. We
learned from the previous season, so now we can have more. And after that,
once he has trusted us with what he has given, he moves us into our season
of plenty!

But this kind of teaching messes with a lot of people's perception of God.
We are now being taught by many tele-evangelists that we should always have
more than enough because God has more than enough. But i refuse to believe
that God would spoil his children by sparing the rod of discipline. Why
would he give us everything all the time? He cares too much about the big
picture to bypass discipline and correction! I just refuse to preach a
prosperity Gospel like that because Jesus didn't preach that. Jesus said
that if you seek the kingdom, things will be added! Now, in math, adding
started out with a numeric figure and that figure got bigger and bigger
right? Well, I believe that the more you walk with Christ, the more he adds to
you.

Suggested Reading: Rom. 1:17, Deut. 4:1, Deut. 11:13, Deut. 13:18, Psa. 37:7, 3John 1:2