THE FORMER AND THE LATTER RAIN

“Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God; for He has given you the former rain faithfully, and He will cause the rain to come down for you - the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.” (Joel 2:23)

The former rain speaks of restoration of old things, the foundations of things that have been broken and destroyed. In Hebrews 6:1 it says, “Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection.” But how can we go on to perfection, if we don’t have solid foundations in our lives? The former rain will be the restoration of the old foundations, and the latter rain will bring us into the perfection of maturity.

“The threshing floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil.” (Joel 2:24) Only as we experience the former and latter rain in our lives, shall we produce the wheat of maturity.

The wine speaks of joy. The joy of the Lord is our strength. Many of us have lost our joy. As we lose our joy, we lose our strength to fulfill God’s call in our lives. If we don’t have joy in our Christian life, there is no joy in serving Him, no joy in sacrificing, and we have no strength to overcome our fleshly life to live the life in the Spirit.

We need to “see” things that happen to us as being for our good and not for our destruction. We need to see the circumstances of life as rain, nourishing and tempering our individual life. Then we will joyfully acknowledge God as the author and finisher of our life, and then the wheat, wine and oil will be produced from our lives.

I don’t think I would be the same person if God had not sent me to America, where I experienced a restoration of those things that the cankerworm had eaten in my life. In Joel 2:25, God promises that He is going to restore what the locust, cankerworm, caterpillar and palmerworm have eaten.

Exodus 15:23 tells us how the children of Israel came to Marah and they murmured because the waters were bitter. They cried, “What shall we drink?” God instructed Moses to throw a tree into the water to make it sweet. We have streams of bitter waters in our lives, springing from the times when the diseases of Egypt, the diseases of the flesh, robbed us of the best that God intended for us. Bitter waters come forth from within, and just knowing in theory how to make the bitter waters sweet, does not help us. We open our mouths and people know there are bitter waters in our hearts. The locust and the palmerworm of the circumstances in our lives have eaten the kernels of our youth and vision, and we are like dry trees, without fruit and strength.

Moses had to throw a tree into the bitter waters. We have to throw a tree of life, Jesus Christ, into the bitter waters of our lives. Don’t wait until you are changed to be fulfilled. We will never be fulfilled in doing things, or reaching goals and dreams. Fulfillment is in Christ by becoming like He is.

In His Love,
      Sigi

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