Are these “Seasons” of spiritual life?

Desert: dryness Fire: trial or pain Battle: when victory fails… Harvest: after toiling the land, sowing the seed, finally …. a harvest. These are NOT “seasons” of spiritual life They do not come in following order They have no fixed periods You cannot really predict them They do not pass when you grow older They tumble over each other

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Read: 1 Peter 1:3-8

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Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

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and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade — kept in heaven for you,

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who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

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In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

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These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.

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Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

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When you feel like being in a spiritual desert

Psalm 63:1 A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Psalm 42:1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.

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Know that the desert can bloom!

Psalm 65:12 The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness.

Psalm 78:15 He split the rocks in the desert and gave them water as abundant as the seas; Psalm 136:16 to him who led his people through the desert, His love endures forever.

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When you go through the fire

Fire as an image of the Holy Spirit. (?) Matthew 3:11 "I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

Acts 2:3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

1 Thessalonians 5:19 Do not put out the Spirit's fire

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Fire: The Holiness of God: Hebrews 12 18 You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire… 23 … You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, 29 … for our "God is a consuming fire” Fire in Jude & Revelation: Judgment (Hebr. 12: 3…the judge of all men)

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Refining fire: painfully purifying.

Psalm 66:10 For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver Isaiah 48:10 See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

1 Peter 1:6-7 6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

7 These have come so that your faith —of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine …

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Is God fighting our Battle?

Psalm 140:6-7 … Hear, O LORD, my cry for mercy.

O Sovereign LORD, my strong deliverer, who shields my head in the day of battle Psalm 32:7 You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.

Psalm 143:9 Rescue me from my enemies, O LORD, for I hide myself in you.

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Harvest

John 4:35 Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.

The Ultimate harvest Psalm 67:5-7 5 May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you.

6 Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us.

7 God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him.

ICEL