We are now in the Hebrew month of Av, which means Menachem Av or Father Comforter. This is a special month to remember God as our Father and the One who comforts us.
Traditionally, August is a month of promotion on the Gregorian calendar because it is the eighth month, which is the month of New Beginnings. However, this year, we entered August still carrying the effects of the Hebrew month of Tammuz, which is characterized as a month of remembering how easy it is for humanity to worship idols in our lives.
The final day of the Three weeks of Mourning is called Tisha B’Av, and it takes place from sundown on Saturday, Aug. 6, to sundown on Sunday, Aug. 7. This is a time of prayer and fasting in Israel, a time of remembering the destruction of the first and second temples and the breaches to the walls of Jerusalem. It is a time of repentance for us all as we are reminded by God of human nature’s need to look to things in the earth for affection and attention instead of relationship with our Father God, that Jesus so selflessly died to give us.
But once the repentance and mourning are over, we are quickly catapulted into a special day of promotion which is Monday, Aug. 8, or 8-8-22.
Get ready; it’s your time for promotion. You have walked through three weeks of having your soul detoxified where God revealed idols to you—those things you have placed before Him in your heart. And, now that you have been made consciously aware, asked for forgiveness, and you are now giving your whole heart to Him, you are ready for promotion in the spirit realms.
This day of promotion is 8-8-22. The number eight represents New Beginnings! This is a month of new beginnings, with a day of new beginnings, in a year of double grace and double glory! Praise the Lord! You are now ready for a New Beginning with Menachem Av our Father Comforter!
Your promotion means that you passed through the mourning phase with a heart of repentance and now you are ready to step into a rebuilding phase. God wants you to commit to a rebuilding of your temple in this promotion. It’s a time of surrender to have your spirit, soul and body rebuilt as a clean temple before the Lord. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (KJV) says, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
The promotion that is now means you are being strengthened to stand on a stronger foundation which is based on your identity in Christ. An identity that does not focus on the distraction of false idols but instead on pure and simple devotion to Christ.
The apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11:3 (KJV), “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” The enemy entraps our minds when we focus our heart affections on distractions to our destiny. We need to have a time to get back in alignment and that is what the Three weeks of Mourning does.
But guess what? We are through that now! Get ready, you are being promoted in your destiny because now you know what distracts you! Continue now to remain in alignment and obey His commandments for a mind of peace and pure and simple devotion in your temple to Christ alone. Then you will walk as the head and not the tail, above and not beneath, lend to many and borrow from none. You will be the example of victorious living in Christ!
Deuteronomy 28:12-13 (NKJV) reads, “The Lord shall open unto thee His good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in His season, and to bless all the work of thine hand; and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath, if thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them.”
You are called to obey the commandments of the Lord, to live by His Word and to stand in the integrity, authenticity and morality that is in line with who God is. These are the marks of the authentic temples of Christ in spirit, soul and body that the world sees walking in destiny! This is why promotion is now—the stripping is over and you are brand new temple. It’s time to celebrate that you are beginning a new journey! God is doing a new thing and you are promoted!
Dr. Candice Smithyman is an international prophetic revivalist and healing minister who is the founding pastor (retired) of Freedom Destiny Church with her husband, Adam, and vice president of Dream Mentors International. She is also host of the Glory Road television broadcast shown on a variety of networks and also hosts Your Path to Destiny on It’s Supernatural Network. She has appeared on Sid Roth’s It’s Supernatural among other shows and is the author of Releasing Heaven: Creating a Supernatural Environment through Heavenly Encounters and Angels of Fire: The Ministry of Angels in the End Time Revival, among other books and publications. Learn more at candicesmithyman.com.
