All my adult life my mama used to tell me, "Kenneth, Jesus is coming this year."

I would say, "Is that right, Mama?"

"Yeah," she'd say, "He's coming this year. And you had better get yourself straightened out!"

Well, the year would go by, and no Jesus. But each new year, here she'd go again…

"Kenneth, Jesus is coming this year. You'd better straighten up!"

"Yes, Mama, I know…."

Occasionally, when she started in on me I would say, "Mama, you said Jesus was coming last year. What happened?"

She'd say, "I know I did—He's coming this year!"

I'm telling you nothing could change her, nothing could influence her. I would even get real spiritual on her and say, "Mama, you're not supposed to set dates on Jesus' return."

"The year don't count," she'd say.

So 'round and 'round we'd go every year. From the time I was a teenager in school, I was so tired of hearing my mama tell me, "Kenneth, Jesus is coming this year!"

Well, she did that until the day she went home to be with the Lord in 1988. Then, as far as she was concerned, it happened—Jesus came. He came, and off they went together to heaven. The only difference was, she left her body here instead of taking it with her.

Now, I tell you all of that to say this: JESUS IS COMING!

I don't know if it's this year. I don't know if it's next year. I don't know if it's next week. But I do know He's coming and it's a whole lot sooner than most of us think.

"Well, Brother Copeland, how can you be so sure?"

Read the Word. Then just take a good look around you. It doesn't matter where on this planet you live—there is more Glory, more outpouring, more preaching, more Word, more believers, and even more hell on this earth than there has ever been before. It's nothing like mankind has ever seen.

Time as we have known it is over. These are different times we're living in now. And what I'm about to tell you is almost unthinkable, not from a bad standpoint, but from a good one.

You and I have entered into a space of time, a little, narrow band of time, which, in the scheme of all mankind, is the biggest and perhaps the most important block of time since the creation of Adam. We have stepped over - in the spirit realm and the natural realm—into exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think (Eph. 3:20).

How do I know?

Let me answer that by taking you back to where all this began.

Overtaking the Sower
To better understand this narrow band of time in which we know live, let's look at the book of John:

When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, "Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?" And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do.

Philip answered him, "Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little." One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, "There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?" And Jesus said, "Make the men sit down."

Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.

When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, "Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.
(John 6:5-13)

Now if there was ever a picture of exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think, this is it. Thousands of people eating bread and fish until they were full, and 12 baskets filled with the leftovers.

People today, like people back then, would say, "My, my, what a wonderful miracle of God!" And they're right, it was a miracle of God. But this was more than a miracle. On that day, time culminated in Jesus. It was compressed, or tightly compacted, within a short space. The growing time for the seed the little boy planted in Jesus' ministry was instant.

That lad sowed his five barley loaves and two small fish into the ministry of Jesus. Jesus received the boy's seed—planting it in fertile soil. He watered it, then immediately there was a harvest.

Not only was there enough to feed everyone until they were full, there was also plenty left over for the storehouse. Whose storehouse? That little boy's storehouse! He was to one who planted, wasn't he?

So what happened? What are we seeing take place before our very eyes?

The reaper caught up with the sower.

"What?! How can that be, Brother Copeland?"

Simple. Look at Amos 9:13:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.

The Word prophesies that there is a time coming when seedtime and harvest time will run together. That young fellow sowed his bread and fish into Jesus' ministry that morning, and went home later that afternoon with 12 baskets full—all because time culminated in Jesus. And that, my brother and sister, is the kind of time we're living in today.

Christmas in September?
You and I are now living and operating on a whole new time frame. When we made Jesus the Lord of our lives, we got over into His time schedule and He got into ours. But what I really want you to grasp is that Jesus' time frame and the world's time frame do not function the same. Oh, we're in the same space as the rest of the world, but we're not functioning on the same schedule —and I'm talking literally.

What do I mean?

Well, among other sources, the study notes in the "Bulinger Bible" explain how the current gentile-ized calendar you and I use is inaccurate and way off-schedule. These sources, explaining how dates such as Jesus' birthday are incorrect, and have been for centuries.

Now this may come as a shock to you, but Jesus was not born on December 25. In fact, He wasn't even born in December. Jesus' birthday is actually sometime at the end of September.

Of course I realize that might upset your Christmas this year, but I don't think Jesus will mind it too much if you continue to celebrate His birthday three months late. But this does have very significant bearing in our immediate lives. Let me explain.

From the beginning, God has given us the time frame in which He will work with mankind. It is a seven-day time frame. We see in Genesis that God created the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh.

Then He gave mankind dominion. He gave him a lease on the earth. How long was that lease? Second Peter 3:8 gives us a key. Speaking of the return of the Lord, Peter tells us, "Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years…."

In light of that, and a mountain of other biblical evidence, we know that mankind was given a 6,000-year lease on the earth. At the end of that time, God would take over and close out the Age with a 1,000-year (seventh-day) reign.

Now we know that Jesus was born 4,000 years into that time frame—or on the fourth day. Even with the mess that the gentile calendar created, it is not very difficult to figure out the correct date of Jesus' birthday, because we know the actual dates of other major events such as Herod's birth and death. Besides that, the Hebrew people have been keeping their calendar for a long, long time.

For all practical purposes, 2,000 years have come and gone since Jesus' birth and ministry. Six thousand years since Adam was created. Where does that put us on our spiritual clock?

We have entered that little sliver of time between Adam's lease on earth—and consequently, Satan's dominion in this earth due to Adam's Fall—and the period of time we read about in (Acts 2:19-20):

And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke; The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come.

The Millennial Reign
You and I are being squeezed between 6,000 years of time behind us and another 1,000 years ahead of us. The 1,000 years facing us is the millennial reign of Jesus of Nazareth, which is the first time in human existence since the Fall of Adam that humanity will be totally and completely our of contact with Satan.

I'm telling you, Jesus is coming. He's about to rise off His heavenly throne and return to earth. He may not have stood up yet, but I guarantee you He is out on the edge of His seat!

Although we are the ones who are wedged into this narrow band of time, really, it is God Who's being pressed and pushed. Andy by pushed I mean everything God promised would come to pass during the past 6,000 years must come to pass before the beginning of Jesus' Millennial reign. Everything He ever said is coming to pass - and only God could accomplish that.

This sliver of time we're living in is the moment just before the catching away of the Church, and the final outpouring when God can do whatever He wants to do, which includes angels becoming more involved in the natural realm.

You and I are in a moment of grace which, for us, means we are reaping a harvest of 2,000 years worth of gospel seed. For 2,000 years seeds have been sown, and now the Body of Christ—you and I—are reaping that harvest. Think about it!

In addition to that, time has culminated in Jesus. As believers living at the end of time, time for us has been compressed, compacted. Seedtime, growing time, harvest time—it has all been compressed into a sliver of time, just as it was for that lad with the five loaves and two small fish.

We are living in the exceeding-abundantly-beyond-all-we-can-ask-or-think time. Hallelujah!

Excerpt permission granted by
Eagle Mountain International Church, Inc.
aka:  Kenneth Copeland Ministries