Treasures in Egypt Part 1 addressed the spiritual characteristics of the seasons of our lives. There were 4 Key Takeaways.

Spiritual Seasons 4 Key Takeaways

1. We cannot determine the length of any season in our lives but we can impact the length and the content of the season.
2. The place you experience your spring and summer can also be the same place where you experience your winter and vice versa.
3. Work the season you are in to yield excellence in the next.
4. As you cycle through each season year after year you will began to discover there is treasure in every season.

Part 1 covered the first takeaway and the remaining three will be covered in this publication.

Spiritual Season Takeaway #2

The place you experience your winter can also become the place where you experience your spring and summer and vice versa.

Takeaway #2

Illustration 1 –  Joseph’s Struggle (Winter) becomes Fruitful (Summer)

Joseph was sold as a slave into Egypt and plummeted into a winter season of his life. He was sold down the river literally, by his brothers.

As a young boy, he no doubt heard about the cultural and economic wealth of Egypt but never thought he would experience Egypt as her slave.

Joseph felt the pain of intimate betrayal but he did not allow the pain to overcome him. He did not get so caught up in the pain that he failed to germinate seeds that would fertilize the next season of his life. Despite the pain he put himself in a position where eventually he catapulted not only himself into spring-summer seasons of growth and favor but he would gain the authority to include his family.

Sometimes we are not able to help anyone else because we are not able to help ourselves. That is because we’ve taken on the helpless victim role. Joseph didn’t do that.

Joseph planted seeds in his present situation in anticipation of them being fruitful in the next.

How did he do this?

• He didn’t allow his circumstances to negatively impact his attitude. The altitude of his attitude projected his outcome in the next season.
• He did not allow the recurring playback of what was done to him paralyze him into self-pity or inaction.
• Every task he was given (and many were beneath him) he did with noticeable excellence. He seeded his current season of bondage with determination to rise out of it.
• He indiscriminately used the gift God gave him to benefit both prisoners and Pharoah.

The same place that was Joseph’s winter also became the place of his Spring (seeding), Summer (growing and maturing) and Fall (harvest). This let’s me know that it’s not all about location or who you’re with. It’s about what you do with the “cards you are dealt.”  

Illustration 2 – Israel

On the other hand, when Israel arrived in Egypt they entered their spiritual summer and fall seasons. While the known world was suffering through the famine they were well fed and protected.

Shortly after Joseph’s death another Pharoah came into power that did not know Joseph (Exodus 1:8). The same place Israel enjoyed their season of plenty became the place where they plunged into their season of winter.  Four hundred years they were enslaved. Four hundred years, that’s a long season.

Why was it so long?

• God had to grow them enough numerically to take on the task of occupying the Promised Land.

I don’t know of one person that is immediately elevated to their promise but first must go through a season, maybe several seasons, of growth.

• God had to make them uncomfortable in the place they became satisfied and complacent.

Some of us are not working the purpose God called us to but have settled for close enough. Sometimes God sends oppression to move us toward purpose. He did the same to the disciples who wouldn’t breakup their Jesus Club in Jerusalem. He sent persecution to scatter them thereby spreading (seeding) the gospel throughout the region and beyond (Acts 8:1,3-4).

• God had to wait until the iniquity of the Canaanites were full.                            

Genesis 15:13-16 NKJV

¹³ Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. 

¹⁴ And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 

¹⁵ Now as for you, you shall ^[a]go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. 

¹⁶ But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

God extends grace to everyone but not all will accept his offer. The Canaanites did not. But God gave them that space to do so as he does for us today. In juxtaposition, God dulled the Jews comprehension of Him as Savior to offer redemption to Gentiles.

Romans 11:25 NKJV

²⁵ For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

What am I trying to tell you by these two illustrations?

Joseph’s Egypt was his prison but it also became his paradise. God can turn your mourning into dancing right to where you are. In your prison cell, in your hospital bed, wherever you are. Whether flying high on the mountaintop or waist deep in the valley. You can’t go or be anywhere where Jesus cannot find you. The answer is not to change your location or to change who you’re with. It’s more like change your heart. When you allow Holy Spirit to change your heart you will change your perspective. Many times you don’t have the option of changing your location or who you’re with. Know that God can work a miracle right where you are. I am reminded of the lyrics in the song Wait On You by Elevation Worship and Maverick City Music.

Wait On You – Elevation Worship and Maverick City Music

The first illustration was Joseph who goes from a winter to a spring-summer-fall season and Israel who goes from a summer-fall season to a winter season. It doesn’t matter where you are, who you are with, you have to mature to the place in Christ knowing that the tide can change anytime. The place you experience your pain can also be the place you walk into your fruitfulness.  As long as you are rooted and grounded in Him you can wait until your Change comes.

Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter when you are mature, you frame the seasons the same…Christ is your frame of reference!

Right now, you are in a season of life… spring, summer, fall or winter.

While you work through it, what is it important to do?

Spiritual Season Takeaway #3

Work the season you are in to yield excellence in the next.

Illustration – Captive Israel

To illustrate this takeaway, I return to Israel in captivity. They were in their winter season. While they were in it, God selected certain ones to seed the current season to yield fruit in the next season.

Exodus 1:15-20 NKJV

¹⁵ Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah; 

¹⁶ and he said, “When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” 

¹⁷ But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. 

¹⁸ So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and saved the male children alive?”

¹⁹ And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.”

²⁰ Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty.

The actions of the midwives seeded two vital components in the next season.

1. Israel multiplied. Males are needed to procreate.
2. Moses was born; their ticket out of Egypt.

Israel’s next season was a season of deliverance and harvest (Fall). All of which indicates they went from a very long winter of enslavement right into their season of harvesting the riches of the Egyptians.

Who else in the Bible seeded their future in their current season?

Positive Seeding

David – From Shepherd to King

• He accepted the challenge and killed Goliath, an enemy who taunted Israel.
• He was a type of “Robin Hood” with his band of merry men “saving the day” for those he could (1 Samuel 25:14-16).  

The Shunammite Woman – From Barren to Mother

• She made a BNB (Bed and Breakfast) for prophet Elisha when he came to town. In turn he prayed that she would conceive. She gave birth to a son (2 Kings 4:8-37).

Negative Seeding

Absalom – From Prince to Traitor

• Swayed the hearts of King David’s subjects away him toward himself. Attempted a coup against his father. The end wasn’t what he expected. He succumbed to his treachery.

Samson – From Judge to Premature Death

• Appointed of God to be a Nazarene and a Judge over Israel.
• Unbridled appetite for women caused a leak in his “armor”.
• His indiscretion cost him his gift and his life (Judges chapters 13-16).

What action are you taking in this season to reap a harvest in the next?  

What do you need in place in this current season to excel in the next season?

Is it a mentor, an attitude adjustment, or a heart change?

Spiritual Season Takeaway #4

As you cycle through each season year after year you will began to discover there is treasure in every season.

Treasures in Egypt

Looking back in history, Egypt was one of the cradles of civilization where there were some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, city-dwelling, organized religion and central government. It was a hot spot for science and technology of that era.

Today’s lesson has shown Egypt to be the cradle for all spiritual seasons. It can be clearly seen, even through the hardships she inflicted, that treasures surfaced like mined diamonds in each season.

God’s promise to us…

Isaiah 45:2-4 NKJV

² ‘I will go before you
And make the crooked places straight;
I will break in pieces the gates of bronze
And cut the bars of iron.
³ I will give you the treasures of darkness
And hidden riches of secret places,
That you may know that I, the Lord,
Who call you by your name,
Am the God of Israel.
⁴ For Jacob My servant’s sake,
And Israel My elect,
I have even called you by your name;
I have named you, though you have not known Me.
⁵ I am the Lord, and there is no other;
There is no God besides Me.
I will gird you, though you have not known Me,
⁶ That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting
That there is none besides Me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other;
⁷ I form the light and create darkness,
I make peace and create calamity;
I, the Lord, do all these things.’

Can you feel the sovereignty God in this passage?

He declared himself God of the calm and God of the calamity. Look at the words “calm” and “calamity”. They are opposite in meaning. However, c-a-l-m is encapsulated in calamity. God has the conversion formula. Simply put, all God does is shuffle a few things around in your life and your calamity becomes His calm. There is nothing that overtakes you that will overwhelm Him!

Hidden Treasures in Secret Places

Spring-Summer – Growth

• Egypt added to Abraham’s wealth
• Joseph became second in command to Pharoah

You: Early cycles – A time of growth, maturation and discovery of who you are in Christ.

Later cycles – you are spreading the seed of the gospel to others to be harvested later.

Fall – Preservation

• Egypt was the “go-to” for Abraham and Jacob escaping the famine in Canaan.
• It was the “go-to” as a hiding place for Jesus when he needed protection from King Herod.
• It was the nation that other nations including Israel wanted as an ally in war.

You: Time to harvest souls for Christ to preserve them from the Judgement to come.

Winter – Spiritual Metamorphosis

• Joseph was enslaved but became Egypt’s and Israel’s savior
• Israel was enslaved but left with Egypt’s riches and a nation of millions

You: The effects of the struggle transform you to reflect more of the image of God.

God used Egypt as Israel’s bank and when it came time he told Israel to make a withdrawal. God used the Canaanites to take care of the land of Canaan until Israel came to move onto their God given promise.

 

Sometimes you can look across the way and it seems someone else is enjoying your promise. Don’t worry, they’re just keeping it warm until God tells you to go possess it. 

In each of your seasons, mine your diamonds. They are there.

There are treasures in darkness hidden riches in secret places.

There is always light in darkness. In the beginning God separated the light from darkness so that day and night could be distinguished. That goes to show there is always light in your darkness. You need the vision and wisdom of God to separate it so the light can be clearly seen.

Conclusion

Everyone has passed through spiritual Egypt. It is a place of all seasons in life. Each season is purposely designed to produce a yield and each yield feeds each successive season. Many languish in this process not having vision enough to see from one season to the next. Those that push beyond the rough waters know that deliverance and prosperity of spirit, soul and body are dependent on the forward strategy God reveals in each season. 

When you properly respond to each spiritual season you are in  you can ensure you will be spiritually nourished continually even in the darkness of “winter.”  

 

 

The Blessing by Elevation Worship

References

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