BREAD OF LIFE PROPHETIC MINISTRY

Ecclesiastes 3:1-To everything there is a time and a season for every purpose.

John 16:33- I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

Don't die in The Winter -

Everyone goes through a Winter Season of Life

Every living thing passes through seasons of change.  Some seasons are easy, even pleasant to pass through.  Others are very difficult. 

The Lord has designed our earth to be four natural divisions of the year, spring, summer, fall and winter.  Each division of the year is called a season, and it is characterized by certain changes.  There is a rainy season, the dry season, the planting season, the harvest season, the hunting season, and the hurricane season.  Our God is a seasonal God. There is a right time for everything, and everything has its season.  The secret to peace in the Lord is to discover God's perfect timing in your life.

Not only are there seasons in the natural realm, but we have seasons in our physical lives as well.  From the moment we are conceived in our mother's womb, a human growth cycle is set in motion, one that brings about  certain biological changes.  This growth cycle is separated into specific divisions like seasons.  Cells multiply which completes a season.  The multiplied cells become a zygote and then becomes an embryo and that is a season.  The embryo becomes a fetus.  There are bumps for the eyes and buds for the ears.  Arms and legs begin to appear, and fingers and toes become differentiated.  Every division of growth is characterized by certain changes until the fetus reaches a certain level of maturity and is ready to be birthed forth.  Psalm 139:13-13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;  your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  Our growth cycle does not stop with the initial stages of fetal development.  Every millisecond of our existence from birth to childhood, adulthood to death, we are constantly changing. 

• We are different in some way today from what we were yesterday
• There will be something different about each individual tomorrow that is not evident today
• 100 hairs fell out of our head yesterday
• 1,000 skin cells fell off of our upper epidermal layer this morning
• Most of us have more knowledge in our head today than we had yesterday.
• Our physical body is 24 hours older today than it was yesterday.

PASSING THROUGH SPIRITUAL SEASONS:

Romans 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Many Christians are going through situations that are very difficult to understand.  But just as there are seasons and specific times of growth and development in the human body, so there are seasons or specific times of growth and development in our spiritual lives.

Luke 4:1-2- 1 And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist and led by The Holy Spirit into the wastelands of Judea, where Satan tempted him 40 days. 

A wilderness is a desolate place.  Everything is dry, and parched.  The wilderness does not have a comfort zone.  It has no solace, rest, relief, or reprieve.  But Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. Sometimes we too are led by The Spirit of God into our own personal wilderness experience in life.  We want to believe that The Holy Spirit will always lead us beside still waters.  But, just like Jesus sometimes the Holy Spirit leads us into dry and desolate places where there is no rest, relief, or comfort.

Ezekiel 37:1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones.

The Lord also led Ezekiel to a valley of dry bones.  The place Ezekiel had to go was unpleasant, but The Spirit of God led him there.

The Spirit of God also led The Apostle Paul into his wilderness experience: 

II Corinthians 11:25 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; 26 In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; 27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

Description of The Winter Season of Life

It is COLD, and a DRAB  time of year.  Everything is bleak.  Negative things happen in he winter.  Cold sets in and winds blow.  The birds fly south and the bears go into hibernation.  The Spiritual birds can represent those that are too "spiritually unstable" to support you during your winter season.  The spiritual bears can represent those that hibernate in their homes for a season because of the cold (the cold represents their DRAB life situations-that swallow them up for a season) and they do not want to come to church.  They are unavailable to strengthen you during your winter season of life.  The leaves turn brown and fall to the ground.  The plants die, water freezes up, and fish travel downstream.  The sky gets gray, days get shorter, and accident rates go up. The crime rate goes up.  Bills get higher.  People get more depressed in winter because they cannot be as productive as they are in the summer.  A winter season is a season when everything that can go wrong will go wrong.  You may feel like the walls are closing in.

The Winter Season of Life.....

• Marital Problems
• Children acting Out of Whack
• Receiving a lay-off from your job
• Business drops suddenly
• You receive an eviction notice
• Your tenants don't have the rent money
• You receive a frightening diagnosis from your doctor
• It is a time of SILENCE from loved ones
• Depression is edging on.....
• The money is short even in The House of God - It is Winter
• Your enemy arrives in town
• The migraine headaches are back
• Your body is going from one physical distress to another..

II Corinthians 11:28 -Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. The Apostle Paul went through His Winter Season even to the point where he was pressured concerning the welfare of the churches.

1 Peter 5:8 -Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.

The enemy will chose his time of attack when we are going through our winter season of life.

• He comes when everything is cold and bleak
• He comes when we have reached a spirituallow
• He comes when we are relaxed in our prayer life
• He comes when we are relaxed with God
• He comes when we are relaxed with studying The Word
• He comes when we are out of fellowship with The People of God.
• He comes when we are not buildt up in the Inner Man
• Dying in our seats-Songs we use to sing-we do not sing them no more
• We find ourselves hurting inside
• A Spiritual death has overcome us-and we use the energy that remains to cover it us
• Clapping fails to reach our hands
• There is no dance in our feet

THE NECESSITY OF SPIRITUAL WINTERS -

When the Spirit of God leads us into the wilderness, we may find ourselves in difficult places.  We are not always there becasue of sin in our life, or because of unwise choices.  Sometimes we find ourselves in the wilderness simply because the Spirit of God has led us there.

PURPOSES FOR BEING IN THE WILDERNESS:

1. Testing - so we can learn to endure
2. Trying - to strengthen our character
3. Tempting - to resist Satan

WHY WAS JESUS TEMPTED, TESTED AND TRYED?

1. Jesus being fully God and fully Man he had to understand what we endure in this life.
2. Jesus had to undo Adam's work.  Adam gave into temptation and consequently passed on sin to the entire human race.  Jesus by contrast resisted Satan and teaches us by example how to endure trials and testing and how to resist the temptation to sin.

Luke 4:4, 8, 12

4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

12 And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

You can make it through your Winter Season of Life:

1. Put on the Full Armor of God - Eph 6:13-17
2. Protect yourself with the Word of God Eph 6:17
3. Prepare yourself with prayer - Eph 6:18
4. Learn how to praise Him at all times - Phil 4:4
5. Submit yourself to God, resist satan, and he will run from you - James 4:7

A Prayer for you:

Father God in the Name of Jesus-

For the individual that has read this message I ask that you will comfort their heart, and bless them with the strength to endure their trial, tempting and test.  Bless them in their wilderness experience and enable them to look to you for help and courage to go through.  Do not leave them in despair, but I ask that you will bring them out of their time of trial and enable them to see the dawning of a new day.  Thank you Lord.