Have you noticed how fast things are moving these days? Everything is speeding up. Technology is advancing so rapidly that even designers can’t keep pace with the science. Plenty of people are complaining about how they wished things would slow down or go back to the way they were. We want time to stand still, and this hasn’t happened since the earth’s creation. We can’t put the cat back in the bag or turn a ring on our finger and suspend everything in one moment. We’re not able to pop in and out of time. We have 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and it’s amazing how it seems to whiz by; now more than ever.  There’s something unusual happening right now, and anyone that is sensitive to the Holy Spirit can sense it. We’re in a season of acceleration.

Reaping and Sowing
What does this mean for us? Well, to give the answer to this question a bit of context, examine what the Creator has told us in Galatians 6:7. He said whatever we sow we will reap. In modern terminology, whatever you put out there is what you’re getting back. This is a very revealing truth, and most people will not hear it. Sowing is the process of planting. We all sow—all day every day, and we will all reap or harvest the thing produced from what we’ve sowed. Heavenly Father has made us master builders. We mold our realities by the thoughts we think, the words we speak, the actions we take, and the overall choices we make moment by moment. Taking this a step further, everything we do, think, and say is based on what is in our hearts. And what is in our hearts is rooted in only two things, either faith or fear.

Jesus Christ said in Matthew 12:35-37(NLT), “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. 36 And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak. 37 The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you.” There is no such thing as in-between, for God created the universe in such a way that it does not respond to ambiguity. The person who seeks to remain neutral will find that even though they don’t want to fight, the enemy certainly wants to fight them.

It’s heating up
Every moment, we are storing up the things we’ve harvested for ourselves, and because we have a ruthless enemy, there will come a time when we need to draw down upon the treasure we’ve stored. This is a process of life that previously took extended periods of time. Long seasons would transpire between our sowing and reaping. The believer could violate God’s Word in one year and may not see the repercussions or consequences of doing so until much later. We had more time to get this spiritual thing right and store up good things from the good treasury of our hearts. This is no longer the case. There is an acceleration of consequences landing in our lives from poor choices and bad actions. This is aligned also with an acceleration of the enemy’s attacks. It’s happening to everyone, believers, non-believers, to those in the public eye and to those that are not. Spiritual warfare is heating up.

Our first response is usually one of asking God why. We can’t rationalize the severity of the hit, but spiritual maturity will also prompt us to look at our storage. We’ll have to examine what we’re carrying in our hearts. Have we harvested faith or fear? In this season of acceleration, whatever is at the root of our hearts will come to the surface. If it’s fear, we will have an opportunity to examine from all angles. Most of us don’t like this part, because when fear comes to the surface, the fruit it bears is trials and tribulation. Romans 5:3-5(NLT) tells us not to freak out when this happens, but to rejoice. It says, “3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.” We rejoice in tribulation because we know that God will not fail us, but will bring us out victoriously on the other side.

Tribulation strengthens our faith, because God will prune us through it. Jesus Christ said in John 15:2(NLT), “He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.”  If we will endure the tribulation by facing it with the strength of God, He will chop off the part of our branch that bears the fruit of fear, so that faith will graft in and our hearts will produce faith’s fruit instead. So, let us endure this season of acceleration with faith, because just as the attacks are fierce, so too will be the blessings.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“A Season of Acceleration”, written by JMack, theChristianMan.com© 2019. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.