Understanding the Times and Seasons of the Lord

There are two words the Greeks use for time and this is reflected in the New Testament:

Chronos – (used 54 times) refers to a specific amount of time, such as a day or an hour (e.g. Acts 13:18 and 27:9).

Kairos – (used 86 times in the New Testament) refers to an opportune time, a “moment” or a “season” such as “harvest time”

In many Scriptures they are used together and some they are not.

Matthew 16:1-3 NKJV Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. (2) He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; (3) and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.

The Lord is wanting His body to be spiritually attuned enough to be able to discern and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit for the Kairos that God brings into our lives.

Ephesians 5:15-17 AMPC Look carefully then how you walk! Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise (sensible, intelligent people), (16) Making the very most of the time [buying up each opportunity], because the days are evil. (17) Therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is.

Colossians 1:9-10 AMPC For this reason we also, from the day we heard of it, have not ceased to pray and make [special] request for you, [asking] that you may be filled with the full (deep and clear) knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom [in comprehensive insight into the ways and purposes of God] and in understanding and discernment of spiritual things– (10) That you may walk (live and conduct yourselves) in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him and desiring to please Him in all things, bearing fruit in every good work and steadily growing and increasing in and by the knowledge of God [with fuller, deeper, and clearer insight, acquaintance, and recognition].

God is saying that He wants us to fully understand what His will is for our lives, clearly and specifically.

It is possible for us to know what He wants for our lives, what He desires for us and what pleases Him.

(Much of the content for these lessons comes from The Hidden Man by E. W. Kenyon)

Permanent help for someone must come from a spirit that is fed and “educated” in the Word of God.

Creative faith, dominating faith, healing faith, saving faith, faith for prosperity, are all in the spirit because faith is spiritual.

Faith is not a product of natural knowledge or reason.

Sense knowledge has never produced the kind of faith of which we are speaking. It can produce sense knowledge faith that believes in what it sees, hears, and feels.

Example – you can have faith that a chair will hold you because of what you see and therefore you believe.

Galatians 5:16-17 NKJV I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh (senses). (17) For the flesh (senses) lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh (senses); and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

Galatians 5:19-22 NKJV Now the works of the flesh (senses) are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, (20) idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, (21) envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (22) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, (23) gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

EWK – When the human spirit gains the mastery over the Senses, it brings them into captivity. Then a man says, “I cannot do that. My conscience (which is the voice of his recreated spirit) will not permit it.” His spirit has gained the mastery over his mind. (or his natural senses)

Until your spirit gains the mastery over your senses, your faith will never be strong and vigorous.

Eternal Life abides in a man’s spirit. When a man is recreated, and filled with the nature of the Father, which is love, there will come forth from his spirit love acts, promptings for love words and love deeds. Let us study it from another angle. The animal world acts by instinct. They have souls; they reason; they have affection. They have the power of choice in a measure, but instinct rules them. God did their thinking for them. The animal’s safety depends upon instinct. Sight and hearing have a second place. When the wild animal trusts his sight or his hearing and ignores his instinct, he becomes a prey of his enemy. When we ignore the voice of the recreated human spirit, we become a prey of the adversary.

You can see, that if you are a recreated spirit, you should live in the realm of the spirit. Matt. 4:4 “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” This righteous, recreated man lives by the Word, feeding on it, and obeying it. We have found that man is a spirit being. God’s dealings with him are through his spirit. If his mind has not been renewed, the spirit does not have liberty or freedom, and cannot manifest Christ in his life. The spirit of man is really the lamp of Jehovah.

Proverbs 20:27 NKJV The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD, Searching all the inner depths of his heart.

EWK – This Spirit of truth was the Holy Spirit, and He was to come and take Jesus’ place after He had finished His Redemptive work. It is almost an unknown fact that the Holy Spirit does not communicate knowledge to the intellect, except in rare cases where one is so dense spiritually that He must communicate with the senses. All the knowledge that natural man has, has come through the senses. It may be necessary that the Spirit come to man’s level (his senses) in order to deal with him.

The Holy Spirit recreates us through the Word. He imparts to us the nature of the Father, and with this impartation comes the new kind of Wisdom. Christ is made unto us Wisdom. This is accomplished when we are recreated.

It is God’s wisdom that is imparted to us in His nature, just as His love is imparted to us in His nature. I have come to believe, as I have studied the subject of the spirit, that when God imparts to us His nature, there comes with it all of the attributes of Himself. They are undeveloped, but they are there lying latent in our human spirits.

How to Develop Your Recreated Human Spirit:

By meditation in the Word
By practicing the Word
By giving the Word first place
By instantly obeying the voice of your spirit (your conscience)

By meditation in the Word

Joshua 1:8 NKJV This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

By practicing the Word

James 1:22 NKJV But be doers of the word, and not hearers only…

By Giving the Word first place

Proverbs 4:20-21 NKJV My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. (21) Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart;

By instantly obeying the voice of your spirit (your conscience)

Proverbs 20:27 NKJV The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD, Searching all the inner depths of his heart.

Romans 12:1-2 NKJV I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. (2) And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Romans 12:2 AMPC Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].

Renewing your mind is a primary way that you will discern the times and seasons of the Lord AKA the perfect will of God.

If everything that is happening in the earth is the will of God, then why do we need to test and prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God?

Ephesians 5:17 AMPC Therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is.

This is the way a lot of people discern what the will of God is:

“Pray for me that I will be healed, if it is the will of God. How will we know? If I get healed then it must have been the will of God and if not, then it must not be the will of God.”

Colossians 4:12 NKJV Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.

If the will of God was going to be done regardless of what we do, then why pray a prayer like this?

Matthew 6:10 NKJV Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.

If it is not happening in Heaven, then it must not be the will of God for it to be happening on the earth.

John 10:10 NKJV The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

If what happened stole from you, then it was not the perfect will of God.
If what happened killed something, then it was not the perfect will of God.
If what happened destroyed something, then it was not the perfect will of God.

Think about this plan: if the devil can deceive people into believing that all the good and bad things that happen in the earth are the will of God, then imagine what he can get away with in the earth. The darkest and most heinous things he can do to humanity, people will attribute it to the hand of God.

You must get your mind renewed so that the world and its ways no longer have an input into what you discern is the perfect will of God for your life.

If you are unsure what the will of God is, then you are unstable and unable.

You really don’t know what to fight for and to fight against.

You are not sure what you should resist or allow in your life.

You don’t know what to receive and what to reject in your life.

You surely will not believe God for what you do not believe is the will of God is for your life.

Romans 4:21 NLT He (Abraham) was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever He promises.

Fully Convinced or Persuaded: play-rof-or-eh’-o

From G4134 and G5409; to carry out fully (in evidence), that is, completely assure (or convince), entirely accomplish: – most surely believe, fully know (persuade), make full proof of.

1 Timothy 6:12 NKJV Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

Lay hold – aggressively seize. Where we get the word epilepsy where someone has a seizure and the disease aggressively seizes them.

Eternal Life – Zoe life, the God kind of life.

This is how to begin to understand what the will of God is:

Rightly discerning the times and the seasons OR the perfect will of God is to make yourself available.

Why would God reveal His plan to you if you are not willing to be obedient to it once you know it?

The phrase “perfect will of God” simply means the complete and entire will of God. If there is a complete will of God, then there is by implication an incomplete will of God.

So, you have the complete will of God, the incomplete will of God, and you have outside of the will of God.

This is because God will never force you to be in the complete will of God.

There are no other options.

The most dangerous place on earth, is OUTSIDE OF THE WILL OF God. The most safe, peaceful, prosperous, and healthy place for you is in the will of God.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were not in the will of God because they did not first willingly submit to it.

Matthew 16:3 CEV But if the sky is red and gloomy in the morning, you say it is going to rain. You can tell what the weather will be like by looking at the sky. But you don’t understand what is happening now.

Matthew 16:3 TPT And, ‘Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.’ You’re so adept at forecasting the weather by looking at the sky, but you’re absolutely clueless in reading the obvious signs of the times.

Humility and Faith are the first keys to discerning the will of God.

James 4:6-7 NKJV But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “GOD RESISTS THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.” (7) Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.