Death To Life

Winter. It's cold. It's dreary. No life anywhere. Granted, you might get a few glimpses of happiness, but most of the time, it is not pleasant. The birds have flown the coup and gone elsewhere, even some people have gone somewhere warmer. The plants have died for the season waiting for the season of new life to come back around. Sometimes, Winter seems to take forever to change and it seems as if things will never get better. But Spring. This second season of the year comes with rebirth and renewal. The birds come home. The plants spring up overnight and things become beautiful once again. Our spirits an souls go through these same kind of seasons. It might start out in the Fall. Cool and breezy. The walk is easy. The burdens are light. You are newly saved and everything is great. Then, suddenly, Winter comes in like a lion and you are knocked on your butt with every hardship this season has to bring. You begin to question what could have gone wrong. The trees you used to walk beside that were once full of color are now bare and empty of all life. You feel dead. What happened? Everything was going great. you were spending more time in prayer, even doing more and more biblestudy. But now, it seems like you are just going through the motions waiting and hoping that when spring comes, you will flourish back into the beauty that used to be. Yet winter continues to drag on, even the groundhog is still seeing his shadow, implying that winter has not reached its end quite yet. A lot of people don't realize this, but whether or not this rodent sees his shadow or not, spring is still on its way. It is not a thing that can just decide to stay away, but rather a natural cycle that comes around every year. Life begins to return to the dead places. Buried acorns begin to grow into mighty oaks, baby animals are born into the world ready to explore their area. People are refreshed with a new outlook on life. We must realize that in order to truly appreciate spring in its entirety, there has to be a hard winter where the old has died into to bring forth the new.  "Therefore, if any one is in Christ, He is a new creation. The old has died, the new has come."-  2 Corinthians 5:17. It is through these hard winters that the things in us that had no business being there, begin to die and are removed from our soil so God can plant in us the new things he has for us in our new season. 

"For to live is Christ, and to die is gain"- Philippians 1:21.   

"For I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly." - John 10:10 

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit,"- John 12:24.

We need to die, For God wants us to LIVE!!!!

Adam Semple- A Young Man On A Mission