March 2020 - Candice Smithyman

Promotion Time is Here

God has been speaking to me for weeks about the fact that this a promotion time. I struggled with this prophetic word because let’s face it when you look for an earthly perspective what we are facing as a nation and internationally is tough times. As many of you know I have been writing for years on the value of the prophetic truths hidden in the Hebrew calendar and how God speaks prophetically to us as a people of God in times and seasons through it. No matter what we may be facing in our lives the word of God, the Torah, and the Hebrew Calendar remain the same. They are long standing truth direct from God that cannot be shaken. We know the power of the word of God and the testimonies of the lives of those written within the Torah writings and the Bible who were changed when they obeyed the word of the Lord first and not their circumstances. When we look at our current world and the loss and pain we have experienced worldwide from the coronavirus we are in a place of lack and fear, but this is not God’s truth and not His perspective. We must stand on God’s truth that never changes especially in the worst of times.

As the month of Nisan on the Hebrew Calendar is fast approaching on Wednesday March 25 at sundown, the Lord has been showing me the power of His words to Moses in Exodus 12 as we read what God speaks to him about what is upon God’s people and how they should respond in light of the news that an angel of death is coming to overthrow the Egyptian gods and ultimately release God’s people from bondage and move the Israelites into the promised land in Canaan.

We as a people are called to live by faith and faith alone. We are called to stand firm in the faith and not be defeated. These are words we minister to ourselves daily as we speak God’s words of life and remember the life of Jesus our Messiah as He walked the earth.

As all of us have been feeling intense spiritual warfare manifesting biologically, psychologically, socially, and economically. Many have chosen to look at their surroundings instead of God Himself. We have been given an amazing picture of truth in our very last month of the year on the Hebrew calendar called Adar. In this very month we read of the plagues that were sent to release God’s people from bondage. In Exodus 11 we read of the final plague that was to come by the angel of death.  In Exodus 11:9 (NASB), “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that My wonders will be multiplied in the land of Egypt.’” So, we see that God has this great plan to release His people by doing signs and wonders that will cause them to know only God could’ve released them from this bondage.

Then when we continue on to Exodus 12 we read that God puts emphasis on the new month coming for His people and the new strategy they would need to implement to survive what was coming ahead as God delivers them from bondage, protects them and carries them to the promised land. In Exodus 12:2-3 (NASB) God says, “This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you.  Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household.’”

God is sharing to Moses that in this month of Nisan deliverance will come to my people and I will set them free not only from death, but they will take silver and gold from the Egyptians, their very own enemy. He says in Exodus 12: 5 -7 (NASB), “Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.  Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.”

Then He says in Exodus 12:13-14 (NASB), “The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. ‘Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance.’”

This memorial that happens every year at this time in the month of Nisan is Pesach or Passover. This is a month where we even as God’s elect remember that the angel of death passed over us.  We know Jesus as Messiah, His blood is our sacrifice for sin and sets us up to enter the promise to come of a hope, future and a destiny with Him now in the present and in heaven forever. Passover also happens in a month God calls a first month and the first thing is always very important to God. He is bringing them out into a new season at the very beginning of His year. He is doing the same for us.

Jesus Himself celebrated Passover as we read in Luke 22:7-8 (NASB), “Then came the first day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. And Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, ‘Go and prepare the Passover for us, so that we may eat it.’”  Then after Passover supper with his disciples Jesus became the sacrificial lamb of God who died for the sins of the world, just as John the Baptist prophesized in John 1:29.

The Hebrew calendar is powerful in that is a lunar calendar and starts on the first month God called it into being when He spoke to Moses and said, “This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you.” (Exodus 12:2) Our Gregorian calendar is solar and is based on man’s calendar set up through Julius Caesar and a later edict by Emperor Constantine at Council of Nicea in 325 AD.  When we look at our calendar right now and the trials we are facing internationally as humanity we can see that God is doing the same thing today as was done years before.

Every year before Nisan there is always a war for destiny. There is always a spiritual war in people’s lives and a time of great turmoil in the earth and the hearts of men, as God calls us to repent and remember He is God. God is sovereign over the earth and calendar and wants repentance from His people at this time. He always calls for us to take a look at our hearts this time of year before we celebrate Resurrection Sunday on April 12.

Every year God says I am going to promote you and bring you into a new promise for the year. A new time of positional increase and promotion. God’s voice does not change even though we are faced with a crisis such as the coronavirus. We need to still see the truth in God’s word and His calendar at this time. There is a war in many areas of our lives, the breakdown of our biology, psychology, sociology and economy is only one aspect. If this worldwide turmoil of the coronavirus was not going on, still everyone would be in a spiritual war right now for one reason or another, personally, professionally, it does not matter, it would have come because promotion cannot come without it. It is true on the calendar every year as we enter our promise land in Christ by faith always at Passover and the celebration of Resurrection Sunday, there will be enemy warfare before the promise comes. The resurrection is our promise for today and for eternity. This was true for Jesus when He was taken away to the cross and suffered at the hands of men was crucified, died, buried and then on the 3rd day resurrected. There was a war with Satan that Jesus paid the price to bring us into freedom from captivity. How do we think it will be different for us?

We must get our heads in the right place and maintain our position in Christ seated with Him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). Regardless of the fear and turmoil we must press ahead as the Hebrew calendar says we will be celebrating our promotion time in the spirit realm. This is a gift from God Himself that we died with Christ, buried with Him and resurrected in Him (Romans 6) Therefore begin to wash in that truth as you face your trial. I realize people are losing jobs, loved ones are sick, we are fighting for our lives, but the Israelites were doing this too during the time of Exodus. They did not know whether or not they would survive what God was asking them to which was to trust Him in the plagues and leave Egypt and then be faced with the Red Sea ahead and a miraculous crossing over. Yet, they did it. God covered them, protected them and took them through it and it was all to promote them and reveal the goodness of God.

No matter the pain in your life right now be it a lost loved one, lost job, lost income, overwhelming fear, anxiety, worry, depression or sickness, or any other calamity. Remember Jesus is our Messiah and He came that we might be resurrected in Him and live with freedom in our hearts and minds. Give Him honor and glory as you go through the warfare for your promotion. You are ultimately fighting the enemy to get you to the other side. Anytime there is a promotion there must be a war. You must pass through something so you get to where God has called you.  This will be over soon as I believe that Passover is a crossing over point and we will see the transfer of wealth and the promise come to pass.

In Ephesians 5: 15-17 (NIV) the word says, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish but understand what the Lord’s will is.” The word opportunity in this passage is the Greek word kairos. This is our kairos moment our season and appointed time to stand in faith and see the deliverance of the Lord for our destiny. In the Ephesians 5:16 (KJV) the word says, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” This word time is the same word kairos.  Jesus is redeeming our time lost or the opportunities that have been canceled or shut down due to this coronavirus, as He paid the ransom for our kairos moment, we must stand and remember Him and we will see the deliverance of the Lord.

So how do we handle things if we are fighting an invisible enemy that slows us down in progress and movement?

One thing we can do while we wait is to sow. In Genesis 26:12, we read of Isaac who sowed in the famine and in the same year received a 100-fold blessing. The word in Genesis 26:18, also says he dug the wells of deep from Abraham that were blocked up by the enemy and reopened them.  Let us do the same. Let us begin to sow and dig deep wells of faith and relationship with God through repentance and seeking Him in reflection as we approach Resurrection Sunday and watch Him be who He is on His calendar which is the God of healing, Jehovah Rophe, and God our provider, Jehovah Jireh. God is giving fresh creative ideas from heaven, grab a hold of them and run with them during this slow time. Get yourself strong in faith for the new that is coming so you will be ready to run the race once this global slow-down is over.

Hebrews 10:19-23 (NIV) says, “Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,  by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,  and since we have a great priest over the house of God,  let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”

By faith, respond with an action to sow and dig during this season and watch God by faith redeem us as this is Hiskairos moment and our kairos moment in Him, the appointed season on the calendar to expect warfare before the promotion. The righteous ones live by faith and they do not shrink back (Hebrews 10:38). We the people of His kingdom will not shrink back but press forward until the promises of God come to pass.