The Reason for Your Season

In his second letter to the church he founded at Corinth, the Apostle Paul wrote "When we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings; within were fears." - 2 Corinthians 7:5

In this powerful statement the Apostle Paul releases a critical prophetic dynamic that revealed the real 'reason for his season'.

Have you been in a place recently that's caused you to ask 'God, what's the reason for my season'?

Obviously I'm not referring to the Christmas season that's upon us but rather the season of exaggerated stresses, pressures and attacks that many in the Body of Christ have been enduring.

Looking at the words that Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers, we see deep Kingdom principle regarding stepping into 'Territorial Entrances'.

A 'Territorial Entrance' occurs when the Lord releases you into a time of expansion and enlargement in which you will possess greater influence and effectiveness.

'Territorial Entrances' have everything to do with an enlargement of the assignment God has given you and the destiny that He has designed for you to co-create with Him.

To fully grasp the dimension of warfare that accompanies a 'Territorial Entrance' we must look carefully at what Paul wrote in light of other examples of 'Territorial Entrances' as described in the Scriptures. Consider the following:

• Jacob's 'Territorial Entrance' was reflected by the deception, trickery and theft of his father-in-law Laban over a 20 year period while Jacob was working for him, hiding from Esau.

• Joseph's 'Territorial Entrance' showed up in the form of a pit; suffering rejection by his brothers and being sold by their hands into slavery in Egypt.

• David's 'Territorial Entrance' was evidenced by the jealousy, hatred and persecution of King Saul, resulting in a 13 year period of repeated assassination attempts on his life.

While there are numerous other biblical examples of 'Territorial Entrances' recorded in the Scriptures, the aforementioned should help establish a clear pattern for you.

When the Lord gives you a 'Territorial Entrance' He opens a door to a new season of assignment in your life. The purpose of the 'Territorial Entrance' is to expand your influence, reach and scope of effectiveness.

With this understanding in mind, let's take another look at what Paul revealed about the 'Conflict Dynamics' that often accompany 'Territorial Entrances'.

First, Paul said 'when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest for we were troubled on every side'.

The word 'Macedonia' literally translates 'extended land' or 'the place of expansion'.

In other words, Paul was saying that at the time God was giving them an expanded dimension of influence and extending the scope of his reach, there was so much external and internal conflict going on in his life that 'his flesh had no rest.'

The word 'flesh' is the Greek word for human nature. It speaks to the totality of the human experience, including one's thoughts, feelings, perceptions and emotions, in addition to the physical body.

The word 'troubled' means 'to press and trample like grapes; to press hard upon, to afflict and distress', while the word 'rest' means 'relief from persecution; to loosen or relax'.

Paul was saying that he was physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted from the hyper-intensive season of all encompassing personal conflict he had been enduring.

The incessant persecution he was enduring produced external and internal stresses within the great apostle's human nature to the extent that they left him completely spent on a human level. Indeed, the 'Territorial Entrance' that God gave him into Europe was an extreme season, even for the battle-tested apostle.

Paul went on to describe that he had experienced an all-consuming battle that produced great conflicts as he said 'on every side', meaning that he was completely consumed with conflict on every level of his life at that season.

Furthermore, Paul told the church at Corinth that he was engaged in both external conflicts ('fighting without') and internal conflicts ('fears within') simultaneously. The great man of God simple enjoyed no respite from the battle at that time.

Through the prism of this powerful revelation that Paul penned, I want you to see the portrait this prolific giant of the faith; the preeminent Kingdom leader of his generation and the greatest voice of prophetic New Covenant Truth completely spent in every level of his life due to the totality of the wars he was fighting in that season.

While each of us expects some degree of resistance and opposition as we pursue our visions, dreams, destinies and assignments, I suggest to you that it is the unanticipated 'Internal Conflict Dynamics' that have a deeper, unsettling impact upon us.

I want to draw your focus back to Paul's statement of battling 'fears within'.

The word 'fears' that Paul uses is the Greek word 'phobeo' (meaning 'terror and dread') from which we get the word 'phobia'.

It is interesting to note that Paul said the season he was in had the affect of releasing a hellish assault of internal phobia upon his mind and within his emotions. These phobia served to create unrealistic, irrational, illogical images and feelings of terror and dread in his imaginations and emotions.

So relentless were these phobias Paul was battling that they touched the core of his soul and left him exhausted from the stress of the conflict, hence his statement that his 'flesh had no rest'.

Indeed, spiritual warfare is psychological warfare. Your enemy is adept at working to create unhealthy stress levels in your mind and emotions in order to awaken phobias within you so as to further exacerbate your season of conflict. His goal: to overwhelm you with exhaustion and to create a state of 'Soul Paralysis' within you.

'Soul Paralysis' is the inability to focus and move forward in your mind and emotions after experiencing a significant setback or an unforeseen blow-back of the enemy against you.

The enemy's real agenda in affecting a 'Soul Paralysis' in your life is to break your focus and to thwart your forward motion in the direction of your destiny, assignment,visions and dreams. He will use phobias as a secret weapon against you when the Lord has opened or is in the process of opening a door of expansion in your life.

The bottom line is that phobia (unhealthy, abnormal fears that create a sense of dread and terror in your emotions) are the enemy's secret weapon in his attempt to stop you from fulfilling your assignment and achieving the victories that the Lord has set before you. The enemy always pulls out the Big Guns when the Lord has opened a Big Door!

I also want to point out that Jesus used the word 'phobia' in Mark 6:50 when He was walking on the Sea of Galilee during the storm and his disciples thought He was a ghost, or specifically, the death angel, a demon or the soul of a dead sailor.

You will recall from that account that Jesus was walking toward them after they had been wrestling with a strong contrary wind for over eight hours in the dark of night,. They were physically and emotionally drained and their fears became exaggerated to the point where they could not physically recognize Jesus.

Indeed, their night season in that storm created 'exaggerated fears' with them. When Jesus told them 'do not be afraid' He literally told them 'do not surrender to your phobia'!

The point here is that an extended season of external pressure, stress, battle and personal warfare will stir up phobias within the mind, emotions and imaginations. This occurs when your natural fears become hyper-exaggerated by unrelenting stress and an opponent who is assailing you on every side.

Let me stress the difference between fears and phobia. Fear in and of itself is healthy when it's in balance in your life. God uses fear to preserve and protect us from danger. Fear is a natural element of human emotions.

Phobia on the other hand are illogical, irrational and exaggerated fears that create terror and dread in the human soul in seasons when one is encountering an extreme season of stress, exhaustion and conflict.

You will note from that exhaustion leads to exaggeration. This is a critical point because the enemy uses exhaustion to create unrealistic scenarios of defeat, doom and destruction in your thoughts and emotions.

I want to be clear right now on a prophetic level:
The phobia you've been battling in this season will not be the outcome of this season!

The enemy has been suggesting things to you by speaking into your life through phobia but he does not have the authority to 'declare and decree' your outcome!

The expanded influence and breakthrough that the Lord told you was yours is going to manifest in your life as He told you it would. The Word of the Lord NEVER returns to Him void and victory will be born out of the ashes of this seasons storms and struggles.

Again, it is essential to recognize that Paul's 'Territorial Entrance' was accompanied by an intense season of personal internal conflict with phobia in his mind and emotions.

The truth is that the Lord gave Paul a great deliverance that empowered him to break through the battle of that season and he moved forward into a greater dimension of enlargement and effectiveness in his life and ministry.

In spite of the headwinds of resistance you've been battling, the door is open, and you've been granted a great 'Territorial Entrance' by the Master.

The ashes of your losses will not keep you from breaking through and possessing the 'God-Things' that lie ahead of you!

Stay Connected!
Pastor Howard

Follow the Flow

Last week I introduced the concept of 'Destiny Keys' that are central to the process of co-creating your destiny and giving life to God's purposes for you.

Moving forward I want to further develop the concept of destiny keys. Of course, a key is necessary to unlock a door. In the process of co-creating destiny with the Master, one must Unlock, Unblock and Up Lift. Recognizing and utilizing destiny keys in your faith walk is essential to seeing the right doors open in your life.

Many times we pray for God to open doors for us without realizing that every door has a lock and that He has given us the keys, (Jesus said that He would give us the keys of the Kingdom of heaven: heaven is the atmosphere of God) or more appropriately, the destiny keys, to open destiny doors.

These phases (unlocking, unblocking and up-lifting) of transition are essential in being able to step into new arenas of authority, fields of favor & vision, new levels of living and new dimensions of destiny.


Destiny Key #2: Follow the Flow

Given the Ruth Paradigm as our model for destiny processing and possessing, I want to draw your attention to the flow factor in her life.

First, the Scriptures tell us in Ruth chapter one that 'flow' (or the lack of flow in Judah due to famine, which is a type of a blocked flow) was the key factor that repositioned Naomi's family into Moab, the place of Connecting and Coming Out.

In other words, God was using the issue of the 'flow' of food (famine) to begin positioning right people in right places. Naomi had a divine assignment in Moab that was much more significant than just surviving a time of famine, or a blocked flow.

As you continue to read the narrative of Naomi's family's travails in Moab you soon learn that her husband and her two sons died there. According to Ruth 1:4 Naomi and her sons remained in Moab for ten years after they had married Ruth and Orpah. It becomes clear in the Scriptures that there was a 'flow' issue for Naomi in Moab like there had been in Judah because her husband and both sons died there.

Furthermore, for ten years neither Ruth nor Orpah could conceive children. The flow of conception, blessing and life was blocked in Moab. Essentially, Moab speaks to us of a season of barrenness and loss. Barrenness and loss are reflective of a flow that is blocked.

Barrenness is symbolic of a 'Blocked Flow'

Let me qualify what I mean by the term 'flow'. Flow is the evidence of blessing and favor in your life.

As long as Naomi was in Moab, her personal flow was blocked. Because her flow was blocked she endured an extreme season of hardness and loss. This season took such a toll on her sense of identity that she renamed herself 'bitter' stating that God had dealt with her bitterly and that He had shattered her world.

The Ruth Paradigm would be one of tremendous hopelessness and grief were it not for the 'Flow Factor'. Just as it was a flow issue that repositioned Naomi out of Judah, God began turning she and Ruth in the direction of destiny when He restored the 'flow' of food in Judah.

It was the restored flow in Judah, coupled with the absence of flow in Maob, that repositioned Naomi and Ruth in Bethlehem-Judah, which is reflective of the place of a destiny inheritance.

While I will be qualifying more regarding a destiny inheritance in upcoming articles, I want to focus here on the destiny key of 'following the flow'.

From our perspective we know that Ruth had a destiny inheritance awaiting her in Bethlehem-Judah and that she had to leave Moab. From Ruth's perspective however, God had plans for her that had not even entered her mind.

Like Abram being called out of Ur, Ruth went out from Moab 'not knowing where she went'. She wasn't aware that a 'mighty man of wealth' named Boaz was waiting in her future and that God would shift her from poverty to prosperity and include her in the lineage of the great kings of Israel.

You will recall that when Ruth and Naomi began the journey from Moab to Bethlehem-Judah, they were accompanied by Ruth's sister-in-law Orpah. Along the route into Judah, Naomi began raising opposition to both of them, encouraging them to return to Maob, trying to convince them that they had no future in Judah.

Oprah eventually turned back and retreated into the obscurity of Moab, never to be heard from again.

If you are going to be heard from in your future and by your enemies you must follow the flow of God in your life!

Don't miss this critical truth: Naomi resisted Orpah and Ruth, yet Ruth survived the resistance, the opposition and the shaking by following the flow of the prophetic within her.

Naomi was Ruth's only conduit to the Kingdom of God, her only source of Word and her only access to matters of God's Spirit. In this sense, Naomi functioned as a prophetic covering/voice in Ruth's life even though Naomi herself was in a pagan country and walking through a season of personal dysfunction and loss.

When Ruth arrived at the crossroads of destiny she encountered a critical time of shaking and testing. This played out in the form of Naomi twice pressuring her through negativity, hopelessness and pain, to return to Moab.

The decisions Ruth made at the crossroads of destiny would determine whether or not she would end up 'achieving destiny and possessing her inheritance'. Ruth overcame the testing and emerged to possess an uncommon inheritance because she followed the flow in her life.

Somewhere along the course of their relationship, the things in Naomi's mouth regarding her God and her heritage awakened, provoked and pulled-on things in Ruth's mind and spirit. Ruth had learned a central Kingdom truth: the voices that stimulate you are the voices that will elevate you.

The voices that provoke you are the voices God has assigned to promote you.

Ruth had discovered that Naomi's voice provoked and stimulated her. Ruth relentlessly pursued the flow that Naomi's voice released in her life and ended up living a life that God used to become a prophetic paradigm for how He uses His favor to shift the living of His people.

The destiny key here is clear: follow the flow, for it's assignment is to set you in right places, with right people, at right times!

Furthermore, you must learn that when flow ceases in your life it means that the favor of God has shifted. I will be qualifying this in detail in my next posting, however I do want to drop this in your thinking:'When your Assignment Shifts, the Favor Lifts'.

In my next posting I will delve into this in more detail. Suffice to say however that the shifting and the lifting of the flow of favor was at play in Naomi and Ruth's lives.

The resulting breakthroughs, miracles and recovery that they both began experiencing in the place of their next assignment was life-changing. This dynamic season of recovery and reversal was only made possible by the repositioning of the flow that had shifted into their future.

So, learn to follow the flow of God's favor: it will take you places you've never been and open doors you've been destined to walk through.

Stay connected,
Pastor Howard

Destiny Keys

Those of you who follow my ministry know that one of my consistent points of focus is in the arena of destiny.

Over the course of my journey of personal discovery and leadership development, Holy Spirit has taught me that one of the dominant assignments upon my life is to equip people to discover their destiny in God by bringing insight, revelation and understanding regarding the prophetic Word of the Lord and it's central role in the life of a believer.

By 'prophetic word' I am talking about the dynamic principles of the Scriptures that reveal the patterns and processes of the Kingdom of God that are at play in the life of a believer, a family and a church.

The prophetic word is the dynamic, vibrant, 'right-now' word from the Lord that:

• Awakens things in you Understanding, Knowledge, Insight, Perception
  
• Releases things in you Wisdom, Anointing, Gifting, Power, Divine Deposits
  
• Empowers you supernaturally Repairs personal brokenness; Revives dead visions, drives and dreams; Rebuilds faith, focus, fortitude and fight
  
• Reveals new dimensions of truth to you Transcendent Kingdom Truth as well as Personal Direction Truth
  
• Releases you experientially into those new dimensions of truth Kingdom patterns and principles begin manifesting or appearing in your personal experiences

In other words, when you receive a 'prophetic word' (regardless of the method God uses to get the word to you) you are hearing directly from Holy Spirit about His plan and purpose for you (your destiny).

This is what I mean by the prophetic word being a 'right-now' word: I mean you are hearing the Lord 'right now' in the real time of your present situation. The prophetic word therefore plays a central role in your ability to perceive destiny and achieve destiny.

The assignment of the prophetic word is to set you in new realms, dimensions and spheres of revelation, direction, communication, wisdom and authority so as to further your development in the direction of the destiny that God has designed you to co-create with Him.

Subsequently, the prophetic word is a proceeding word from the Lord and it contains the life of God in it. When you receive a 'prophetic word' the Lord is engaging you in a destiny event or a prophetic contact moment. Destiny events and prophetic contact moments must occur in your life in order for your destiny to be created.

Before you can create the destiny that God has for you, you must perceive it. The function of the prophetic word is to reveal destiny perception to you. God births every process with a word so when He wants to create something new, He says something to someone!

With an understanding in mind of the centrality of the prophetic word in the life of a believer and its role in furthering the development of one's destiny, I want to begin sharing some prophetic principles that you must grasp and embrace if you are going to co-create with God the destiny that He has planned for you.

Lately the Lord has been focusing me on the Book of Ruth and showing me the numerous 'Destiny Keys' that are revealed in Ruth's personal journey from pain to power, from poverty to wealth, from obscurity to notoriety and from significant loss to substantial recovery & restoration.

Having been positioned by the circumstances in her life as an obscure Moabite widow who suffered great loss and was surrounded by deep sorrow, Ruth's destiny (to become the wife of Boaz and to be the wealthy, influential great-grandmother of King David) seemed impossible to possess circumstantially speaking.

As I like to say however, when God's got a plan to include you, it doesn't matter what life has done to exclude you!

Over the next couple of weeks I will be posting some of these 'Destiny Keys' here for your edification and enlightenment. I would encourage you to being studying the Book of Ruth personally, asking Holy Spirit to reveal His patterns in your life in light of Ruth's journey.

Destiny Key #1: Creating or Achieving Destiny is the Result of a Divine Process

Today, I want to start by developing the concept of 'The Process'

‘The Process’ is the totality of the events, scenarios and seasons playing out in your life that are being orchestrated by Holy Spirit to empower and position you to create your destiny and to access places of divine appointment, assignment and purpose’.

In other words, God is up to strategic things in your storms, your struggles and your situations. He is orchestrating events in your life even though His orchestration may well be invisible to you. You must know that there is a process to the flow of events and seasons in your life and that He is the God of that process.

Remember that destiny is a progressive journey over time, not a singular moment in time, and the process serves to bring order out of the seasons and scenarios of chaos that occur at intervals along the journey.

The process means also means that you are not alone and that God is working through your warfare to build a champion out of you.

I will be unfolding this dynamic Kingdom principle to you along with additional Destiny Keys over the coming weeks. In the meantime, stay connected with me here at bishophoward's blog as I'll be posting frequently over the coming weeks.

I pray that this article will become destiny event and a prophetic contact moment for you. Be encouraged today to know that Holy Spirit has a strategy in your struggle and that His process in your life will bring you to the places that He has appointed for you.

Be Blessed,
Bishop Howard
PS. You can access my sermon catalog by logging onto my website @ www.howardbass.com.  Click on the 'Ministry Products' tab on the home page to access our message catalogue.