FROM SIFTING TO SHIFTING

Written
October 16, 2008

Luke 22:31-32 (New King James Version)
And the Lord said, "Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren."

Sift - 1 a: to put through a sieve b: to separate or separate out by or as if by putting through a sieve2: to go through especially to sort out what is useful or valuable
That word "sift" is interesting. It implies the use of a sieve. After the harvest was brought to the threshing floor, the farmers had to separate the wheat from the chaff, or foreign matter. Part of the procedure involved a process known as sifting. The farmer put the wheat or corn into a sieve. By means of a shaking process, the smaller objects – the kernels of wheat, for instance – were worked to the bottom of the sieve and fell through the mesh onto a prepared place on the ground. From here the cleaned wheat was collected into containers, while the chaff and other rubbish still in the sieve was discarded. Essential to this sifting, sorting process was the shaking of the sieve.

SHAKING is the perfect word to describe my life in the past few months. It seems as if I have had an onslaught of attacks from every side! Have you ever been in a place like that? I think it is the one place in our lives that can make us or break us where our walk with God is concerned. I have been in the place of sifting. Did you notice something about those verses? First of all Jesus tells Peter that Satan wants to sift him as wheat, BUT he assures Peter that he has prayed for him. What an amazing assurance! Jesus is praying for us as we go through the sifting! BUT, notice what He says next. . ."And when you have returned to Me. . ." What? Satan is going to sift him. . .Jesus has prayed for him. . . . To return to Him, must mean he was going to depart from Him. . .from his faith. Jesus knew Peter would depart from his faith, even if it was for a short time.


Sometimes we do that too. We may not walk away from God, but we fail in our faith. We deny Him in our words, our actions, our attitudes and in our relationships with others! I do it. . . you do it. . .Sunday School teachers do it. . . Pastors do it. . . you get my point, we are all guilty at one time or another of succombing to the sifting.


Taking a closer look at the process, sifting is not always a bad thing. It is meant to separate the wheat from all the other useless junk. It's a shaking, that's for sure, and definitely not fun. But the end result is that we are made more useful, we lose the "junk" that was holding us back. We become more purified.


Now look at the last thing Jesus said to Peter here. . ."Strengthen your brethren!" There is a qualifying that comes with the sifting!! He can now be used to strengthen his brothers in the faith! He goes from the SIFTING to the SHIFTING! Here we see a man whose faith was tried and he failed, who was sifted and then returned to his Faith and the SHIFT began! He began a great ministry to the world! He strengthened his brothers and they spread the Gospel all over the place!! They started the Church of Jesus Christ!!


Since I have spent more than the past month in sifting and have returned to Him, here begins the SHIFT! God is moving, He is moving ME! He is moving IN me and THROUGH me and so many will be strengthened because of my sifting, because the "junk" was shaken out of me!!
It sure makes you look very differently at those who are struggling with sin and their faith than what you are used to seeing them as. Instead of that poor, weak sinner, we see a mighty work in progress!! We see the sifting and can soon anticipate a shifting!! My shift is happening even as I write this!! The sifting has been hard, and the enemy would like nothing more than to re-sift and re-sift me, but the time of sifting is over and I am SHIFTING!! Just watch what God does now!!