A couple months ago as I was in our morning time of prayer at Christian International, I was walking and praying when I heard the Lord say, “Set the Time!” I looked at my watch and it read 8:47. I looked at the clock on the wall and it read 8:42. I humorously thought to myself, “Hmm, is it irritating God that the clock on the wall is running slow?”
My husband is always fixing details like that – straightening pictures, resetting clock hands…so I went over to “set the time.” When I did I noticed that there was a logo in the middle of the clock and under that it read, “Established 1847”. It was 8:47 and I was setting the time on a clock that read 1847. Seemed to me God was up to something!
As I continued to walk and pray, I initially had a couple thoughts. First, I recognized that in this Jubilee season we are in a “set time” of favor. In Psalm 102:13 God declares, “I will arise and have mercy on Zion, for the time to favor her, yes the set time has come!”
We know this is a strategic time to draw on the favor of the Lord, not only for personal advancement and blessings but for the divine purposes of Heaven being worked in the Church and in our nation. Scripturally you find that whenever favor shows up, everything changes!
When God gave Israel favor in the sight of the Egyptians everything changed! They were released from bondage and given great wealth which launched them into a new season for the nation to move forward and be established. We are in such a time right now individually, corporately and in our nation.
Secondly, I recognized that the clock was running behind time, and the movement of the hand forward was a sign that God is catching us up into His timetable. Every place there has been delay, resistance, hindrance, distraction or any other work that has taken us out of God’s timetable, God is now initiating the work to catch us up and put us right in the middle of His plan.
Again, this can have an application for personal areas of breakthrough, as well as for the Church and our nation to advance past places we may have been bogged down or off course.
Scripture with 8:47
Yet as I continued praying, the Lord said again to me, “Set the Time.” When He repeated Himself I realized I wasn’t getting the full impact of what He was trying to say. So I began looking up every Scripture that had a reference of 8:47 to see if I could further discern this message. I found that in all of Scripture, there were only three verses that had an 8:47 reference.
The first and only Old Testament reference is found in 1 Kings 8:47 “…and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors and say, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly’…”
In this passage Solomon is dedicating the temple. He is appealing to the Lord and asking that if the nation ever faced a time when, because of their sin, they were taken into captivity and then recognized their wrongdoing, repented and turned their hearts back to Him, would God heal them and restore them (see 1 Kings 8:46-51). Wow!
They could actually set the time for their deliverance through properly positioning themselves before Heaven to receive freedom and restoration. We are in such a time right now.
The second Scripture was found in John 8:47 when Jesus was speaking to the crowds and said, “Whoever is of God will hear the words of God.” This is an emphasis on how imperative it is for us to hear God’s voice in order to change our world.
But the third Scripture resonated with me for how we work with God to set the time for our miracle. It is found in Luke 8:47 and is the story of the woman who had an issue of blood who desperately pressed through the crowd to lay hold of the hem of Jesus’ garment: “Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at His feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched Him and how she had been instantly healed.”
When she reached out and touched Him, full of faith and expectation, Jesus stopped and said, “Who touched Me? His disciples replied, “Lord, many are touching you…we are in a crowd!” But Jesus said, “No, someone purposely touched Me because I felt virtue/power go out of Me.” (See verse 45-46). And the woman was immediately made whole.
God is Waiting on Us to Set the Time
As I discussed this with the people I was praying with that morning, it became clear that this story was part of the heart of what God was saying. Most of the time when Jesus was healing the crowds of people He was doing that which He saw the Father doing. But in this instance it wasn’t Jesus that “set the time” for this woman’s miracle, but rather the woman “set the time” through her faith, desperation and determination.
Many times when we are believing for a miracle we may feel we have positioned ourselves and we are waiting on God, when in fact, God is waiting on us to activate our faith to “set the time” for the release of the supernatural turnaround.
We see this principle with the very first miracle Jesus ever performed in John chapter 2 at the wedding of Cana. Mary, Jesus’ mother, came to Him with her crisis. The bride and groom had run out of wine to serve to the wedding guests. Jesus replied to His mother, “Woman, what does that have to do with Me? My hour (or My time) has not yet come.” Jesus Himself was telling her, “It is not time yet for Me to do miracles.”
Yet in the very next verse Mary tells the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it!” I suspect that there may have been more to the conversation between them. I envision that when Jesus told her, “Mom, it’s not time yet for Me to display My miracle power,” Mary may have said, “Listen! I am Your mother and You will do this for me!”
In other words, Jesus said it is not time yet, but Mary set the time by putting a demand on the anointing she knew He carried. She reached into the future and pulled it into the NOW!
Now is the set time of favor for the people of God! In the words of John G. Lake, “If the Spirit doesn’t move me, then I move the Spirit!”
Now is the time for us to “set the time” and put a demand on the anointing of God to release miracles of provision, turnaround, healing and Jubilee. Pull your future miracle into the NOW by activating your faith and pressing into His presence as never before. Remember, every day is Jubilee when you are in Christ!
Jane Hamon
Vision Church @ Christian International
Email: click here
Website: www.visionchurchci.org
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