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IT'S "DEW" TIME
(with Scripture Guide)

The seed will grow well, the vine will yield its fruit, the ground will produce its crops,
and the heavens will drop their dew. I will give all these things as an inheritance
to the remnant of this people. (Zechariah 8:12, NIV)

ONE OF THE LORD’S most beautiful gifts to the earth is dew. Dew is a quiet and peaceful agent of refreshment that falls in the calm and still of evening. Yet without this dose of heavenly mist, the ground would not have all it needs to continue to produce what we and our fellow creatures need to sustain our lives. While it is true that dew is not the earth’s only source of water, dew is an important and consistent source of renewal to the earth.

Many passages in the Bible liken the refreshment the ground receives from dew to the refreshment that God provides us in our own lives as well. As parents of special needs children, the demands on our lives can often leave us feeling sapped of strength; dry and parched. Just as the earth needs the dew for a new surge of energy, we also need the dew of God’s Spirit to fall on us so that we have all we need to continue moving ourselves and our children forward into all God has for us. Let’s take a few minutes to look at what the Bible has to say about the power of dew:

1. DEW RENEWS THE FACE OF THE EARTH.
During the night when dew falls on the earth, vegetation is nourished and grows. Without dew, dryness and desolation can set in, greatly inhibiting the growth process. The same is true of renewal in the Lord. We are being renewed day by day, which suggests that an ongoing renovation, restoration, and transformation is taking place in our hearts and lives. Titus 3:5 says, “according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.” Just as dew regenerates and renews the earth, so the Holy Spirit regenerates and renews us.

The dew of renewal also brings a complete change of heart. The dew, though only a fine mist, is often enough to soften hard and otherwise barren ground. The Holy Spirit, God’s restorative agent on this earth, can transform and renew through the quiet spiritual soaking of the dew of renewal. He needs only our cooperation, through obedient and submissive relationship with Him, to soak us afresh with the dew of renewal.

2. HEAVENLY DEW PROVIDES STRENGTH TO MOVE FORWARD.
Dew is released when all is still. It does not gather when there is heat or wind. When the temperature falls, the air comes to a point of rest, then the dew can begin to cover the earth.

Rest occurs when we enter into the perfect will of God. If we will get still before the Lord, we will receive the revelation and strategy to move forward out of the hassles, anxieties, and warfare that have sapped our strength in the past season.

The opposite of stillness is haste. Haste leads to poverty and lost inheritance because we misunderstand or are not willing to wait for God’s strategy for our next step forward. “But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Is. 40:31). Isaiah 30:15 says, “In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” As we get quiet and rest before the Lord, we are in a much better position to hear and understand the strategy for our next step. In the process, His dew of refreshing can fall on our lives and bring new levels of strength that will move us forward.

3. THE DEW OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IMPARTS OVERCOMING POWER.
“Where the heavens drop dew, blessed are you. Who is like you…a people saved by the LORD? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you, and you will trample down their high places” (Deut. 33:28-29). By appropriating the power of God through the Holy Spirit (which in this passage is likened to dew), we have the authority to overcome the enemy’s plan to keep us from spiritual life and wholeness. High places in the Bible are often linked with places of sin and iniquity; places of idolatrous altars. We all have had high places in our lives filled with sin and iniquity, sometimes even passed down to us through the generations.

The dew of the Lord, used here as a picture of washing us clean, gives us the power to tread down the high places and defeat old enemies living there. As we allow the Holy Spirit to cleanse us of sin in our lives, we find that our minds are also renewed. God is able to replace old deceptions that have caused us to fail in the past with a new belief system that will bring us to success!

4. THE REFRESHING DEW OF THE LORD GIVES US NEW SUPPLY AND PROVISION.
“Therefore may God give you of the dew of heaven, of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine.” (Gen. 27:28). When Isaac blessed Jacob, he equated the dew of heaven to the material prosperity that Jacob would receive.

Like the rain, dew was regarded in biblical times as God’s gift bringing good harvest and providing food. As the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, we find that God supplied their needs each night as the dew fell. “Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its color like the color of bdellium. The people went about and gathered it, ground it on millstones or beat it in the mortar, cooked it in pans, and made cakes of it; and its taste was like the taste of pastry prepared with oil. And when the dew fell on the camp in the night, the manna fell on it.” (Num 11:7-9). Dew, therefore, came to symbolize supply and provision, new every morning.

As we follow the Lord’s leading, His dew will also rain down new supply and provision in our lives, just as it did for the children of Israel.

5. THE FAVOR OF GOD IS “LIKE DEW ON THE GRASS”
“A king's rage is like the roar of a lion, but his favor is like dew on the grass.” (Prov. 19:12). Favor means pleasure, desire, delight, to be pleased with or favorable toward something. When God is pleased with us, His favor rests on us. Favor is very similar to grace and to glory. When we respond to the sovereign hand of God, He begins to drop down on us His favor. His favor can cause us to accomplish things on the earth and give us access to places that we did not previously have access to.

The opposite of favor is reproach, which means to find fault with, blame, criticize, disapprove of, or discredit. As God’s favor comes on us—initially through salvation, and then is sustained by our obedience to Him—He removes condemnation, failure, and mistakes from the past—places where the enemy has brought reproaches into our lives. We exchange disapproval for favor.

God is raising up an obedient people that are responding to His heart. As we obey Him in faith (for without faith it is impossible to please God or allow His favor to come on us), we will begin to feel that favor dropping like dew from heaven.

6. DEW IS NOT PERMANENT.
Dew falls during the night season when all is quiet and calm. As soon as the new morning breaks, however, the dew begins to evaporate. We need to allow God to continually refresh us. The children of Israel received just enough manna for one day at a time. In the same way, yesterday’s dew is not sufficient to meet today’s needs. Only our ongoing relationship with the Lord will provide us all that we need as we move forward.

May the Lord provide you with a fresh mist of His dew, bringing with it renewal, strength, overcoming power, provision, and favor.

With blessings,
Jack and Rebecca Sytsema

©2006, Children of Destiny. All rights reserved.

(This article has been adapted from the book, Possessing Your Inheritance, by Chuck D. Pierce and Rebecca Wagner Sytsema, published by Renew Books, 1999).

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IT'S "DEW" TIME
SCRIPTURE GUIDE

May God give you of heaven's dew and of earth's richness-- an abundance of grain and new wine.
(Genesis 27:28, NIV)

Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.
(Deuteronomy 32:2, NIV)

Where the heavens drop dew, blessed are you. Who is like you…a people saved by the LORD? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you, and you will trample down their high places.
(Deuteronomy 33:28-29, NIV)

Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy majesty, from the womb of the dawn you will receive the dew of your youth.
(Psalm 110:3, NIV)

A king's rage is like the roar of a lion, but his favor is like dew on the grass.
(Proverbs 19:12, NIV)

But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.
(Isaiah 26:19, NIV)

The seed will grow well, the vine will yield its fruit, the ground will produce its crops, and the heavens will drop their dew. I will give all these things as an inheritance to the remnant of this people.
(Zechariah 8:12, NIV)

According to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.
(Titus 3:5, NKJ)

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
(Psalm 51:10, NIV)

When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.
(Psalm 104:30, NIV)

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