Notes from Ps Vlad Savchuk's sharing on Oct 25, 2023 [When in Transition Keep in Mind These Truths!]
Salient points
1. Life is made out of seasons (Gen 8v22; Ec. 3v1; Gal 6v9; Ps. 102v13; Ps 30v5; 2 Tim 4v2; Acts 14v17; Dan 2v21)
2. Change of seasons causes stress (Heb 11v8; Jos 3v4; 1 Kings 3v7; Jn 16v33)
3. Before you enter the new season, you must exit the previous season (Isa. 43v18-19; Phi 3v13; 1Sa 16v1; Jn 15v2)
4. The new season requires a different spirit (Num 14v24; Mt 9v16; Mt 9v17)
5. The new season will change your scene
6. God does not change when the seasons do (Gen 39v2-3; Gen 39v21-23)
7. New season means new supply (Josh 5v12; 1 Kings 17v7-9)
8. The new season brings new sacrifices (Joshua 3v5)
9. The new season will need a new strategy (Josh 9v14)
10. New season, new stewardship (Lk 16v11; Jn 6v11-12; Jn 6v11-12)
What to do in transition? Keep these 10 truths in mind.
1) Life is made out of seasons
Everything moves in cycles, night and day, life and death.
The Bible says that our life will have seasons.
So, it's important not to be discouraged when you hit a difficult season, because this season will not last.
Similarly, when you hit a good season, remember it will also not last.
But take heart because sometimes God will take you from a “good” season to a “great” season.
2) Change of seasons causes stress
Being in a transition means you're stepping into a new season, and most likely, you're stepping into something you feel unprepared for.
Both positive and negative life events can be the sources of stress and affect your health.
When you experience a change of season, it's natural to come under more stress. There is no such a thing as a stress-free season. Every season will have certain stress, and changing of season increases that stress until you adapt to that season.
When your seasons change, don't ask God to remove the stress.
Ask God to increase your strength.
Not all stress is bad. There is a type of stress that motivates an individual to make positive changes, achieve goals and grow. There is another stress which can be harmful and detrimental.
You cannot experience a shift in your season without God increasing your capacity to live with certain level of stress.
The first initial stages of your life changing will bring a flood of stress and that's why you need to anchor yourself more and more in God.
And when you get used to that new change, you won't experience that stress anymore.
Good times and bad times in life are like two train tracks. They go simultaneously at the same time.
In other words, your best seasons will have the worst days; and your worst seasons will have the best days.
So don't postpone your joy to another season. Rejoice in God today.
Don't postpone your being in God's word for another season. Be in God today.
Find peace in the storm. Find joy in the trial. Find rest in God when life is challenging and difficult. Renew your strength now.
Don't wait for the stresses to be dissolved. Ask God to increase your strength.
Transition could be a process of pain because it takes you from one state and condition to another. It could be a hard season, a dark season, because it takes a lot to adjust.
Anytime there is a change, it increases your stress for a short season. That's why in that season, instead of quitting or running away, you should seek God to increase your strength.
3) Before you can enter the new season, you have to exit the previous season
God's principle is always this: you have to leave to cleave. You have to exit to enter.
God wants to do a new thing. But to do a new thing, God is asking you to forget the former things. You need to leave the things behind where they happened.
This is one of the challenges for people in transition. They tend to bring bags of the past with them.
Are you mourning over your past where there were good things that happened there?
Maybe God did amazing things; maybe somebody walked away from your life; maybe you lost a position, an opportunity; maybe you lost a place that you really thought would be permanent but it wasn't permanent; perhaps you are in the place now where you had some good things that happened in relationships and those things now are no longer; maybe you're a pastor or minister and some people exited your ministry and you're mourning over the loss, you're hoping for them to come back; maybe you're hoping the good old days to come back, instead of looking forward to the future.
But God is saying we need to stop weeping.
God says you have grieved long enough for what used to be. Fill your horn with oil - get a fresh vision, get a fresh fire, and go, because the best days are not behind you.
You may feel like the best days are behind you because the best people left your life, or the best times left your life, and you feel like nothing is hopeful and optimistic.
But the Lord said to Samuel and I believe that this is same thing is for us.
Our God is not stuck in the past. Our God moves forward in the future.
Your future is greater than your past. Where you are headed is brighter than where you are coming from.
And to do that, you have to wipe the tears. You may grieve but that grieving period has to have an end and you have to close that casket and realize what is gone is final.
We all need necessary endings.
There are seasons projects and people and relationships that will serve its purpose and they will come to an end. And we have to grieve those endings and let that go, so we can open ourselves up for new beginnings.
So many people are stuck in this because they're not embracing the new thing because they're holding onto the old thing that had died, that doesn't work anymore or doesn't help anymore.
God has something new for you, but you can't step into the new if you don't let go of what you're familiar with – that thing is no longer useful for you and no longer going to be a part of your future (the brook dried up).
You got to move forward, pivot and shift.
When God says don't remember the former things, when God says it's done, move on! Move forward.
You may feel fearful because you don't know what the future holds. Well, you know someone who holds the future - it's God and He's the one that's asking you to fill your horn with oil.
Fill yourself again with optimism, faith, trust and vision.
Don't have memories bigger than your vision.
Don't have your past greater than your future.
The Lord is transitioning us into a new season.
Grieve the past, wipe the tears; then fill your horn with oil and go forward because God has provided something in your future that's greater than your past.
God has something more in your future than what you've seen in the past.
Where you're headed is bigger than where you're coming from.
Pruning is a painful necessity for those who want to step into a new season of fruitfulness.
Embrace necessary endings in order to receive new beginnings, in Jesus’ name.
Embrace the new, the uncertainty of the new, the fear of the new.
Navigate endings more proactively, move toward God and the purposes of God even if it's not comfortable.
4) A new season requires a different spirit
You can't step into a new season with an old mindset.
You can't step into a new season with the wrong spirit or wrong attitude.
New seasons bring a lot of challenges.
Your attitude and perspective have to be one where you see opportunities in obstacles, blessings in battles, and God's provision in your problems.
If you don't have that attitude, you cannot rise in your new season. Your new season will squash you.
If your attitude is one of pessimism instead of optimism; fear instead of faith; complaining all the time instead of trusting in God, you will step into a new season and you will never embrace it as God's gift. You will despise it and curse it.
When Joshua goes to the promised land, he sees breakthroughs. He has a different spirit.
The question is what kind of a spirit do you have? What is the default setting of your attitude?
Are you a complainer or are you a grateful person? Are you a person that trusts or are you a person that whines?
Are you a person that sees problems in every blessing? Or are you a person that sees blessings in every problem?
After interpreting Pharaoh’s dream about 7 years of famine and 7 years of plenty, Joseph finds a solution in the problem and his season switches. He becomes the Prime Minister.
Every person that succeeds in the new season is a problem solver, not problem finder.
Problems will always be there. But a person that is effective face every obstacle.
They trust in God; they have an optimistic attitude. They find a solution with God's help, with faith, and trusting Jesus.
These are people who thrive, and God's favor seems to follow them. They seem to be blessed.
In reality, they have a different spirit; a different attitude and perspective on life. They don't see cup half empty they see it half full.
It’s not about positive thinking. It’s an attitude of faith because new season creates new set of challenges you have never faced before.
If you complain, whine, and always see problems, you will be like the 10 spies out of the 12. They died like grasshoppers, not because God wasn't faithful, it's because they were fearful.
New season requires a new spirit.
That means you have to be an optimist, see every problem as an opportunity. See every closed door as an invitation; every sickness as an opportunity for God to heal; every problem as an opportunity for God to intervene.
You don't get rewarded for finding problems in life. You get rewarded for solving them. You go to a higher level not because you discover a problem but for solving it.
David did not become a giant killer until a giant was in front of him. Giants expose true giant killers. These problems are meant to elevate you when you solve them.
Joseph did not become a Prime Minister because he won a lottery. It's because he solved a riddle and then he solved the problem. He spent his whole life solving problems.
Being idle and being scared of problems, challenges and limitations will not promote you.
You may not know but God knows everything. He will give you wisdom and insights. He will guide you, and lead you.
So don't be a person who always says no to every new opportunity just because you see an obstacle there. Be a person that is a learner, not a complainer.
Gideon didn't know how to fight, Moses didn't know how to lead a nation, Noah didn't know how to build an ark. Solomon didn't know how to fill in the shoes of the one of the greatest kings that Israel had. Joshua didn't know how to lead a nation into a new land. The apostles didn't know how to lead the new movement that will stand in opposition to the Jewish faith.
But God was with them, and they had a different spirit.
With God, all things are possible. Every Mountain is a mole hill.
With God, we will conquer. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. You can do it through Jesus.
Become learners instead of being lazy. Learn new skill, stretch yourself and allow God to stretch your faith like a rubber band. Like a rubber band, faith is useless if it's not stretched.
God's way to promotion is to give you a problem to solve.
A different attitude, a different spirit sees a problem as an opportunity.
Have new faith, and experience the new ways of God. You will God's breakthrough and God's blessing.
Now declare this:
• I will see opportunities in obstacles.
• I will see blessings in my battles.
• I will have a new spirit and new attitude when I face new challenges through the strength of God.
You have to have a new mindset; and it has to be more faith-based than fear-based.
You have to have a mindset of God is going to do a miracle instead of I'm going to die here.
You have to have a mindset where a mindset of abundance.
God is going to move. Faith is really looking into your problem and expecting God to show up. Fear is looking at your problem and expecting the devil to show up.
We must have faith looking into the future.
5) New season will change your scene
Recognize your season, and adjust your life to this new season accordingly - dress accordingly, budget accordingly, and manage your time accordingly.
Your goal is not to conform to the season but to adapt to the season.
There is a difference between adapting and conforming.
Conformity is a negative quality of blending in, becoming average, refusing to stand out or capitalize on one's uniqueness, while adaptability is a positive quality of being able to sense the shift in the wind direction and proactively adjust one's course to take advantage of that wind shift.
While conformity is a weakness based on fear of rejection, adaptability is a strength based upon confidence in oneself and in one's own judgment and abilities.
There are certain adjustments you have to embrace when you enter into a new season.
If you do not make proper adjustments when you enter into a new season, you will feel wrong. It just will not be right and it will add unnecessary stress to your life.
6) God does not change when your season does
God does not leave you when your seasons change. God doesn't love you less.
In the case of Joseph, God didn't make his life easier but he made him more successful even in the difficult seasons.
Your enemies can take your code but they cannot take your anointing. They can ruin your reputation but they cannot destroy your character. They can take you from your family but they cannot take you from your God.
Stay attached to God, not to your seasons. Fall in love with God, not with your season.
When in the good times, praise God; in the hard times, pray to God; but do not leave the Lord just because your seasons change - whether good or bad.
Promises to remember:
• Through the valley of the shadow of death God is with me.
• Though you walk through the fire, it won't burn you.
• Though you walk through the flood and water, it won't drown you because the Lord is with you.
• The Lord says: I Am with you always to the end of the age.
• The Bible says He will never leave us and never forsake us – in good times and bad times.
Put your roots in the soil of God's promise and God's word.
Remember God does not change when your season changes. He doesn't abandon us when our seasons change. He doesn't leave us when we go through the valley.
People may talk about you, judge you based on your season (when it's a fruitful season, they will say you're blessed, but when it's a valley season, they will say you're cursed) but God doesn't leave you.
7) New season means new supply
When God removes the provision of “manna”, it means He is preparing you for “milk and honey” or prosperity.
When God removes the “just enough”, it means He's positioning you for the “more than enough”.
One of the ways you know that your season is shifting is when God changes the supply in how He provides for you. God is always the Source, but He changes the resource.
When you experience a new season, your Source doesn't change, but your resource changes.
Eg God provided for Elijah from the brook. But then the brook dried up, but the Source didn't dry up. The resource dried up and God told Elijah to go to a widow for He will feed him from there.
When your season shifts, and your brook dries up, it's time to pray and pivot.
Trust in the Source when your resource dries up. Trust that God will find a different resource - it could be a different job, career, opportunity or idea.
God is your Supply. Jehovah Jireh - the Lord who provides.
God is El Shaddai - more than enough.
God is Jehovah Rohi - He is your Shepherd. He will lead you to green pastures.
He will provide for you.
Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else shall be added to you.
God has a “resource” but He's always the source. Don't look at your job as your source.
When your season changes, God will switch the resource, which could be your job or position.
The Lord wants to prepare each and every one of us for a new season. He's a good Shepherd. He's a Good Father.
This is the gospel of the Kingdom - us believing God for all of our needs, and looking to God as our Source. We don't trust God only for salvation, but we trust God for everything.
The Lord is our provider, He's a Good Father and every good perfect gift comes from the Father of Light with whom there is no shadow of turning.
Trusting in God as our “Source” doesn't mean we don't work. It means we work, pray and pivot.
We worship and we work hard. But we trust in God to bring a new resource.
Sometimes that happens when your brook dries up; sometimes that season shifts when the business that you were doing tanked and you have to pivot to another business and do something else; sometimes you have to receive a word from God to stay at this particular thing and wait for things to turn around; and sometimes you have to pivot completely and jump to something else completely different.
8) New season also brings new sacrifice
Today's sacrifice is tomorrow's supernatural.
Israel walks into the promised land and the first thing God asked of them is to be circumcised.
They walk into a new season, manna stops. They walk into a new season, cutting begins. They walk into a new season and they're finally about to conquer the first city in the promised land, Jericho.
New season is about putting God first. It's acknowledging where your blessings come from, acknowledging who is your Source.
Put God first in your finances.
Put God first in your day by spending time in His word because new season requires new sacrifice.
New season requires new systems. God comes first.
Sacrifice shifts a season because by putting God first, He will begin to move mightily on your behalf, all other things the Bible says will be added unto you as God is now involved in your affairs.
We don't sacrifice to manipulate God for personal gain. A sacrifice is a thankful response for His blessings. It's affected by the forgiveness of our sins and restored fellowship with God and our neighbour.
We don't sacrifice to earn a blessing. We sacrifice because we acknowledge where our blessings come from. It comes from God.
For some people, to put God first in a day is a sacrifice; for some people to put God first in the month through fasting is a sacrifice; for all of us, to put God first in our finances is a sacrifice.
Give toward expanding of God's kingdom. When you do that, you you're planting seeds and that's how sometimes the shift happens in our seasons.
A drastic shift in the season is usually preceded by a sacrifice, and usually it is preceded by a financial sacrifice. A sacrifice has a way of shifting your heart towards the things of God, in God's direction because one of the biggest competitors for our heart is our money. Sometimes the Lord will go straight for the heart and he wants your heart to be anchored in Him so you acknowledge where your Source comes from.
Sometimes what you have in your hand is not enough to meet your need, but what you have in your hand is actually your “seed”. If you're a farmer, you’d know you shouldn't eat the seed, but you should plant them.
9) New season will require new strategy
We can't live on yesterday's success or dwell on yesterday's defeats.
When you enter into a new season, you live by God's principles and be led by God's presence.
When Joshua entered the promised land, God wanted him to depend on God for every decision. Trust in Him and seek His advice.
Joshua did that but in some occasions he just kind of relied on yesterday's victory and yesterday's success and he actually found himself in a defeat because he didn't ask God. He did not allow the Lord's presence/peace/spirit to guide him.
You may say common sense decisions don't need God's opinion. But the truth is, we need God for everything. It's good to pray for everything; to thank God in everything.
Don't let your success be your strategy.
Instead, let the Holy Spirit be your strategy. We must rely on the Holy Spirit and lean on the Lord.
New strategy will come from God. You have to develop your own intimacy with God and have the Lord guide your steps every single day.
10) New season new stewardship
It's always easier to obtain something than to maintain it.
Half of the Book of Joshua is about Israel defeating the enemy; and then there's the other half of the Book of Joshua is about dividing the spoil.
So, it's not just about obtaining, it's also about managing; it's not just about subduing, it's also about stewarding; it's not just about a miracle, it's also about management - how you manage that miracle.
When you enter into a new season and God is blessing you that you experiences a new thing, you will need to learn a new way of stewarding what you have because God wants to take you from “glory to glory” from “faith to faith”.
He wants to take you from fruit to more fruit to much fruit and to “fruit that remains”.
Sometimes people lose the season of blessing they don't steward it.
If you have a good season and you handle it poorly, it will turn into a bad season.
If you have a bad season and you steward it well, it will turn into a good season.
You must learn to steward the good season: if God brings a breakthrough, and you become arrogant and irresponsible, and you start to become lazy with your devotions and don't have time for God and family, and pick up bad habits, calamity will hit. This is not God's will for your life.
When you steward your blessings right, the Lord multiplies them because it glorifies His name.
It spreads His influence and goodness on this earth. Our God is a good God, and He wants to bless people that steward things well.
Think of yourself as a steward of every blessing from God, NOT an owner of it.
You are bought with the Blood of Jesus Christ. That means you don't belong to yourself. You belong to Jesus.
Stewardship is really a management of what belongs to somebody else. Stewardship is a calling; not an option.
We have to constantly walk in integrity, purity and righteousness.
Sometimes it's the foolish decisions that were made in good times that cause our eventual downfall.
So, when things are good, when you're in a good season, prioritise God, prioritise your sacrifice, discipline and living with integrity. Be attached to God, not to your good season or to a bad season.
Remember God is the “Source”. Stay close to Him in your seasons - God will take you from good to great.
Eg God took Joseph's seven-year good season, which Joseph stewarded well, to seven years of famine, which Joseph also stewarded really well, to becoming a prime minister in Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. Joseph rose to the top through a difficult time for the benefit of many (he helped others through the famine).
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Pray for the Holy Spirit to bring that wisdom and that shift that we need in our life so that we can embrace those changes.
Dear Holy Spirit, You're the one that changes seasons.
In Daniel, it says that God changes seasons.
Lord, You're the one that brings a set time of favor. You shift things in our life. You give us grace and in due season, we reap.
Lord, Your word says that as long as earth exists, there will be reaping and sowing, there will be night and day, there will be cold and warm, winter and summer.
Lord, I pray for those who are in between seasons, for those who are stepping into a new season, for those who are in transition right now, that You will give them wisdom help them to deal with the stress that comes with the those changes.
Help them navigate with wisdom, help them to steward the resources, problems and challenges that they're experiencing.
Help them have a different attitude of gratitude; attitude of seeing, believing and trusting that God will show up in their situation.
Help us not to get addicted to good times and help us not to get distracted, discouraged or deeply disappointed by difficult times.
Lord, I ask that You would help us make sacrifices in our seasons, to make new systems and new habits of always putting You first in our life.
Jesus, for those who are stuck in a season that is painful, in the season that is dark, in the season that is hopeless, would you lead them, would you pull them out of the miry clay, would you set their feet upon the rock, would you help them to be faithful in between the seasons, would you help them to walk in the valley, swim in the flood and go through whatever they need to go through, with You.
Help them not to postpone walking with You to a different time but to walk with You now, in Jesus’ name.
I break off every spirit of death; break off every spirit of disappointment, depression, anxiety, fear of the unknown, fear of future, chronic fear, in Jesus’ name.
Lord Jesus, let Your presence come right now. May the winds of change come; may they blow in our back; may we experience God's acceleration; may we experience God's favor.
I pray for those that are fasting, Lord, may You open Your favor.
May the set time of favor begin to come in their career, in their ministry, in their job and in their family, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/live/aZura3nGSwE?si=KNoOBEPqwVIsRoVp
