Samson appeared to have lived a prepared life up until that point. And when the “eater” came, the Holy Spirit fell upon Samson with a breakthrough anointing. By the Spirit of God, he tore the lion apart. We can expect the Holy Spirit to do the same for us. He will fall upon us with new strength and we will finally deal a spiritual deathblow to our devourers.
Surprised by His Sweetness
When Samson returned to Timnah, he detoured off the road to inspect the lion’s carcass. Here I believe Samson was waking up to his God-assignment and needing to reflect on what had happened. Instead of bones and a few bits of flesh, Samson found honey inside the carcass and ate his fill of sweetness. To the Israelite, honey was a promise of future blessing and later it became a symbol announcing a sweet year to come. Either way, the eater was now the feeder signaling the pattern of conflict and turnarounds that would follow Samson until his death.
In addition to the phrase, “Out of the eater…” I’ve also been hearing a word about “sweetness.” The Holy Spirit is announcing that we too will be surprised by the Lord’s sweetness this coming year. In a (Jewish) year that began with prophecies of disaster and economic downturn, we can instead expect His sweetness to be expressed in divine turnarounds by the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s going to be a sweet year.
Do You Have an Orphan or Poverty Spirit (Mentality)?
“… but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits” (Dan. 11:32, NKJV)
Samson grew up with loyal and devoted parents. He was their only son and consecrated to the Lord as a Nazirite from birth. Samson also knew from the youngest age what he was born to do. Although he struggled with his passions, his foundations kept him on course to protect and begin rescuing Israel from the evil Philistines.
Kris Vallotton from Bethel Church in Redding, California once said, “We need to know who we are and whose we are!” This again is about our foundations, namely knowing the heart and nature of our God and knowing what we were born to do. As I mentioned earlier, this Jewish year started off with the wet blanket of foreboding prophecies. Understand that because of the Blood of Jesus, God is not angry with us and neither is He holding our sins against us (2 Cor. 5:9). We are commanded to be reconcilers to Christ and these types of prophecies do not accomplish that.
Regardless, there were two spirits (mentalities) exposed in the American church during September’s rumors of economic crisis “in the name of God.” They were the orphan mentality and the poverty mentality. These mentalities almost empowered an “eater” in the guise of the prophetic. A scared church becomes a withholding church, which binds the gospel from being preached. When you know that you know He is your Dad, you can’t believe for one minute that He would not provide generously for you!
When you know why you were born such as Samson did, you can’t stomach messages that appear to take away your future.
Kingdom Finances for the Harvest
“The eater,” says the Spirit, “will now become the feeder.”
The Holy Spirit is reintroducing the message of kingdom prosperity to the body of Christ. The purpose is to finance the end-time harvest.
My prayer is that we would be healed of the orphan and poverty mentalities and no longer fear economic crisis. There is no lack in the kingdom of God.
My other prayer is that greed and excess mentalities won’t choke out a real Biblical truth and that this would go in the direction the Holy Spirit intends it to go. Our Father desires to be generous to us so He can be generous through us to see His work finished in the earth.
Reprinted from The Elijah List. Jennifer Eivaz is an Executive Pastor at Harvest Christian Center in Turlock, CA. Send an email to Jennifer at Asst2jeneivaz@harvestturlock.
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