Growth Happens In The Dark

(Genesis 8:22) "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."


There is a purpose and process for everything God does, he is not a God of disorder. (I Corinthians 14:33) “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace--as in all the congregations of the Lord's people.†On the 3rd day, Jesus rose from the dead, but to get to the 3rd day there has to be a 1st and 2nd day. On the first day he died. We are all living in sin before coming to Jesus as our Savior. (Romans 3:23) “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.†On the 3rd day, Jesus rose from the dead to life! That is a promise for us as well, but in order to receive it, we must die to self first. (Romans 6:6-7) “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.†We realize that on our own, we cannot live a life pleasing to God without him and that eternity in heaven, salvation, can only come through Jesus Christ. It was the dark times of reaping the consequences of our sin that led us to Christ. God allowed the darkness to lead us to the light. We then make a decision in our hearts to receive him as Lord and Savior and confess it. Then, we are born again! (Romans 10:9-10) “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,†and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.†The first day is death, the second day is a time of growing or discovering in order to receive what is needed to rise above it. Jesus went down into the depths to preach to those who went before he came to earth, in order to raise them up with him; increasing the family of God! While living in sin, you came to a dark place, consequences of your sin and a reality that you needed a Savior. You could not do the same things any longer, you discovered Jesus in that dark time. You learned who HE really is to you. That was your 2nd day. The 3rd day was when you asked him into your heart.

There is also a second day in our spiritual growth. God did not pick the Israelites up and plant them in the Promised Land. They had to walk it; they had to fight the battles. In the hard and dark times you grow. How will we ever learn that we need him if we don’t ever have to need him? Their faith grew as they learned of his faithfulness and helped them to win the battles they fought. (Psalm 60:12) “With God we will win the victory, and he will trample down our enemies.†They needed the battles in order to get to know who God really was to them. The same is true of us as we go through trials. Passions for our purpose arise in the trials, impurities are weeded out. We grow closer to God with each trial we overcome, each victory and deliverance God brings us through and our faith grows as a result. (I Peter 1:6-7) “In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.â€

Growth happens in the darkness, in our trials. A baby is in the darkness of a mother’s womb, growing before being brought into the light of the world. That growth is needed and if birth happens prematurely, then the baby will not be fully developed. The baby will need to be in an incubator until the doctors say the baby is developed enough to go home with the parents. A seed is planted in the darkness of the ground. Growth happens before you see it sprout up, but when it does, you see a bright green! How beautiful it is to see new birth; which is a miracle in itself. Whether the birth of a baby or plant or animal or a born again soul, growth in the darkness makes it possible and all birth is a miracle and a true sign of a living God!



1st day

On the 3rd day, Jesus rose from the dead--but the 1st day he died. He died to plant his seed in us. Our first day, we die to sin and his seed planted in our hearts. (Matthew 17:23) “They will kill him and on the third day he will be raised to life.†Jesus died on the first day and he went into the depths of the earth to preach to the dead who died before he came so everyone would have a chance at salvation. (Romans 3:25) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.†(Ephesians 4:7-10) “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says: ‘When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.’ (What does “He ascended†mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very One who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) (I Peter 3:18-20) “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.†The ark is symbolically speaking of Jesus. God had been preparing for Jesus to come all along and the Bible is his story. Jesus is a seed planted in our hearts, and just as a seed planted in the ground needs to grow, his seed and the fruit of his Spirit needs to grow within us as well; weeding out the impurities and making room for the fruit of his Spirit to grow.






2nd day

A seed is planted in the darkness of the ground and it needs the darkness for Germination, which happens when a baby plant is growing. The plant is between the cotyledons. This is a seed. The seed is underground and is collecting nutrients. We go into the dark places of our trials to die to self and to grow spiritually. This may take longer for some than others and it depends on the amount of healing and weeding God needs to do to heal us from our past; our past sins and hurts that have broken our heart. (I Peter 1:22-23) “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring Word of God.†The hard shell (outer crust of our heart)--the ground that needs to be broken to see daylight--needs to be broken so the plant can spring up into new life! Our past has created a hard shell around our hearts, and the trials we endure will not only allow God to pull the weeds of impurities from our heart, but it will also allow him to heal our hearts as well. (I Peter 1:6-7) “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.†When the outer shell of the seed falls away, it receives nutrients from the rain that seeps into the ground and it starts to grow. When we stay in the Word and stay close to God in prayer and communication with him, we will also begin to grow as the rain of the Holy Spirit waters our hearts and soul. (James 1:2-4) “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.†The rain of the Holy Spirit will teach us and guide us through our trials and through what we read in the Word. (John 14:25-27) “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.â€

The trials you go through will help you to grow spiritually. A seed planted in good soil will grow if watered and in time it will poke its way up through the ground. The good soil of Jesus Christ in our hearts through the Holy Spirit will help us to grow if we continually feed on the rain of the Word and time with God. He will break the crust completely off of our hearts and we will grow. (Ezekiel 36:26) “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.†At the right time, we will spring up and be raised from the dead of our past to new life in Christ!


3rd day

Ground is broken through, new life-day light and resurrection is at hand!!! (Romans 6:2-11) “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin---because anyone who had died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.†All the dead things in your life, emotions and spirit, the dead things that only keep you in the grave will fall away and new birth will spring up. You will have a newness in your spirit and a new direction in life as well. You truly will feel as if you were “born again.†(John 3:3) “I tell you the truth; no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.â€

You may have to go through several trials of learning, weeding, growing and healing. That depends on how badly you have been hurt and how many weeds of sin God needs to pull. You may have a resurrection from one hurtful memory that has deposited wrong thinking into your minds and God will heal you through trials, then another one will spring up and our Father will start the process over again. Just like the 12 months of beauty treatments Esther went through. You begin God's beauty treatment when you receive Jesus. The 3rd day in your life will come, just believe!

(I Corinthians 5:17) “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!â€

 

[Keety]

Praise the Lord Jesus!
If I could rate this 10 stars, I would, because it is powerful and truly blessed me.
God bless you!