Breaking Cycles & Redeeming Time – The Power of Elul

BREAKING CYCLES & REDEEMING TIME
THE POWER OF ELUL 

Several years ago, I said YES to an invitation from the Lord to align myself with His rhythms, His times and His seasons.  When you say YES to these things, you rarely understand the fullness of what you’re saying YES to.  And that began a journey of learning and exploration with Him that still captivates me….

We know that there is no time in God, and that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the feasts.  Yet, if we align ourselves with His established rhythm, we will have an added grace propelling us into His plans and purposes. In Christ, we are not limited by time and space, and through Him, we can legally access a realm outside of time.  Not only do we have access to God the Father through Christ, but we also have access to higher dimensions, dimensions outside of time.  Yet in the earth realm, God has put a rhythm in the very fabric of His creation, like the way that there is a certain time to plant and harvest certain crops.  We can rise above the laws of earth, but we must understand and honor them first.  If we break these laws due to ignorance or lawlessness, we will pay the consequences and may miss some wonderful things the Lord has given us.

Genesis 1:14 says that the heavenly lights were given to us for signs and seasons.  The Hebrew word for seasons is “moed”, which literally means “APPOINTED TIME.”  It is the same word used when referring to the Biblical feasts.

    Psalm 89:15, “Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied)
are the people who know the joyful sound
[who understand and appreciate the spiritual blessings symbolized by the feasts];                          they walk, O Lord, in the light and favor of Your countenance!”

THE HEBREW MONTH OF ELUL
Though not mentioned in Scripture (the months were not named until the Babalonian captivity), the  Hebrew month of Elul begins a Jewish tradition of 40 days of repentance in preparation for Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).  Elul literally means “search.”  We are given a time to search our hearts in preparation for Yom Teruah and, ultimately, Yom Kippur.

In the Spirit, these 40 days are transitional, a “flex” time in the Spirit, where the rhythm of God’s grace makes it easier to break free of negative cycles.

RECURRING CYCLES ARE A MANIFESTATION OF THE LAW OF RESONANT FREQUENCY:  WE DON’T GET WHAT WE WANT; WE GET WHAT WE RESONATE

Natural and spiritual laws apply to everyone, whether we believe in God or not, or whether we understand them or not.  Is God cruel because I hit the ground after jumping off of a 10-story building?  Did He throw me to the ground?  No, I am just subject to natural laws….. Until I discover and begin operating by a higher law.

Basically, we draw to ourselves the strongholds in our soul.

The Biblical term “stronghold” is just that – a strong hold.  THEY HOLD US IN A CYCLE!  It is the structure that gives the enemy legal ground, and it is the place of agreement that allows demonic oppression.  The Greek word for stronghold, taken literally, means a fortress.

    II Corinthians 10:3-5
“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God
for pulling down strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing
that exalts itself against the knowledge of God,
bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”

The process of tearing down strongholds is basically the process of maturation, of being “changed from glory to glory” (II Corinthians 3:18), of “bring transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).

Strongholds consist of:
1.  What is in our DNA; our generational memory
This law was created for blessing, to pass down good from generation to generation.  But it also works negatively.

2. Our life experiences, positive or negative

3.  What we think (our core belief system, which includes our subconscious and unconscious minds—not our religious correct answers)

4.  What we feel (even emotions that have been repressed or shut down)
Emotions resonate strongly from any place there has been a hurt or trauma.  And emotional thoughts are far more powerful than rational ones.

5.  How we see ourselves (generally a result of life experiences, how our parents saw us, what they said, how they taught us to see ourselves and what they modeled for us)

6.  Habits and patterns (usually survival mechanisms)
These habits and pattens may have been the only way we knew to cope or to survive.  But at a certain place of maturity, they become a hindrance to our destiny and we must let them go.

WHERE THERE IS FRUIT, THERE IS A ROOT!

God knows that we will sin (miss the mark), so everything about His interaction with us is redemptive. Revelation 13:8 calls Jesus “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”  But God has also built a redemptive rhythm into His created world, and into His seasons and feasts.

THE KING IS IN THE FIELD
In Hebrew the letters of Elul (alef, lamed, vav, lamed) are an acronym for the phrase “Ani ledodi vedodi li” which is “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine” (Song of Solomon 6:3).  In Hebrew tradition, Elul is the time when “the King is in the field rather than in the palace.”  Unlike other times when He is in the palace, once a year, during the month of Elul, He is walking in the fields, easily accessible to all.  Of course we know that the veil has been torn, and, because of Christ, we can approach His throne boldly.  But the point is that during this season, there is a special nearness, when God is present, speaking to us about what needs to be redeemed from past cycles and seasons.

In the Spirit, it can feel like everything is loose, uncertain.  But that is intentional on God’s part.  Because, before each new cycle, He gives us the opportunity to properly align.

During this month, I usually set aside specific time to listen, and to pray through things I am struggling with, as well as past dreams, revelation and prophetic words.  Two years after doing this for the first time during Elul, I looked back at the things the Holy Spirit highlighted to me, and I was amazed to see that He had uprooted almost all of them!

YOM TERUAH (FEAST OF TRUMPETS)
The first day of the following month, the month of Tishrei, is Yom Teruah or the Feast of Trumpets. It can be viewed as a prophetic wake-up call.  But I believe it is also the traditional trumpet call blown to announce the King.  In other words, on this day, we are choosing to make Him King over all the areas He has spoken to us about and over our lives.

YOM KIPPUR (THE DAY OF ATONEMENT)
There are 10 days between Yom Teruah and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) which are called the Days of Awe.  There is much to say about this day, but in the context of this teaching, I just want to mention that, at Yom Kippur, we will be sealed for another cycle and we will eat from the fruit of what we have said yes to and what we have said no to. I believe that many times, this fruit manifests in the earthly, natural realm by Passover, in the spring.

1.  Don’t get legalistic or trade with a spirit of fear.  Just realize we have a God-given opportunity where He is pouring out abundant grace to break free of negative cycles, so that they do not become more deeply entrenched.

2.  Don’t strive or try to figure it out or fix yourself:  In John 6:63, Jesus said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”  We should never fear a corrective word from the Lord, because there is always an abundance of grace (Divine empowerment) that comes with every word He speaks.

3.  Our part is just to be sensitive and yielded to His voice, and to agree with what He is doing in us.  Listen to the Lord and write down places where there is fruit you do not want to take into the next season.

Declare this:  “This work in my soul is not done by my own strength, by working or striving or figuring it out.  It is all by grace through faith by revelation.  As I agree with God and co-labor with Him, I will break free of every ungodly cycle and will produce abundant fruit in this new season!”  

BREAKING REPETITIVE CYCLES
Time is not linear, but cyclic.  Every year, as earth revolves around the sun, we pass the same place in the universe that we have been before.  We are greatly affected by the layers of experiences before us—both our own and our ancestors.

Several years ago, a very prophetic friend had a dream.  She saw me worshipping and interceding on the keyboard, and, though she didn’t totally understand it, she knew that it had something to do with the alignment of the stars and some promises of God manifesting on the earth.  That left me with more questions than answers, so I began asking the Lord if I align with the stars or if I align them.  A few weeks later, I had the first of a series of encounters where Jesus spoke to me out of Song of Solomon 2:  “Arise, My love, My fair one, and come away.”  He grabbed me by the hand and we flew into the stars, where together, we rearranged them.

This encounter helped me to better understand the authority that the Father has given His sons over time and creation.  Because the heavenly lights were given to us for signs and seasons (Genesis 1:14) and because Jesus gave us back the dominion over creation that Adam forfeited, we, like the Roman centurion in Matthew 8, are both under authority and walk in authority.  In complete submission to Jesus, we are able to legally walk in authority over creation.  This is why creation groans for the revealing of the mature sons of God (Romans 8:19-22).  Creation came out of alignment at the fall, and is still subject to powers of darkness.  It longs to be brought back into submission and proper alignment to the plans, purposes and seasons of God… and that will happen through us!

Through Jesus, we are able to break free of the negative cycles in our lives and to supernaturally redeem all the time that has been lost!

SUPERNATURAL REDEEMING OF TIME 
It is no coincidence that God took Abram (a Chaldean, who understood the stars) outside to look at the stars when He made a covenant with him promising Him descendants (Genesis 15:5).  Thirteen years passed, and, again, God appeared to Abraham saying, “At the appointed time (Moed), I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.”  (Genesis 18:14).  And God kept His promise, returning a season of fruitfulness to one who was long past the age of childbearing.

In Joshua 10, God had the sun stand still until Israel had completely subdued their enemies.  And in Judges 5, Deborah, a prophet and worshipping warrior, acknowledged that the stars themselves were fighting on their behalf.

Judges 5:20
From the heavens the stars fought, from their courses they fought against Sisera.

WORSHIP AND INTERCESSION
Worship and intercession are portals through which we can enter another dimension, a dimension outside of time.  From that place, (because we are submitted to God and also walking in our authority), we bring the seasons into alignment with the will of the Father and things that were done or not done in past seasons can be supernaturally redeemed and brought back into alignment.  And, with the beginning of a new season, those things are sealed and solidified to bring forth fruit.  It is a redemptive cycle created by God for our good, but, like any other natural or spiritual law, works for good or for evil.  If cycles are not broken, they will become more deeply entrenched.

Again, we know that Jesus is the embodiment of Jubilee and of all the feasts, so we can access His redeeming power at any time.  But I would like to encourage you to utilize the abundant grace of these 40 days to break free of negative cycles and to redeem all that has been lost in past seasons.  In 2016, Elul begins the evening of September 1st.  So, set aside some extra time to walk with the King in the field…