The Person Jesus Is Within Us

June 13

“A time to gain, And a time to lose; a time to keep, And a time to throw away…” Ecclesiastes 3:6.

God has established seasons as part of the structure of how we live our lives. There is a time to prepare the soil, a time to plant the seed, a time to tend the crop, a time to harvest. There is a time to make commitments and a time to work at maintaining commitments; there is a time to reap the reward of promises kept.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 gives us an extensive list of the things God has established for us in their time. His Holy Word says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die

a time to plant and a time to uproot
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

King Solomon, the author of the passage goes on to ask, “What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race; He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

The seasons of life have a sobering impact upon the way we live our lives, for we know if we do not do things in their appointed time, we risk failure. If we do not plant the seed at the appointed time, the harvest cannot come, if we do not prune the trees, they will not flourish.

The brother of the Lord, in James 1:2-4, tells us to, “Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be complete, lacking nothing.”

Here we discover that even the seasons of trial in our lives are designed to perfect us and strengthen us in the inner man. So, can we, will we, attend to the seasons of life in their appointed time? Will we gather and scatter; will we rend and sew; will we laugh and mourn—knowing that in all these things God will receive the glory, for through them, the person we are will become the person Jesus is within us.