It’s really the fire that purifies…
The fire that burns — is also the fire that cleanses.
And it’s in the fire of faith, and through the furnace of affliction, that real sons and daughters are born.
Your identity gets revealed.
“Sons”
“Daughters”
Of the living God.
Ask the three men thrown into the furnace, with fire heated up 7 times.
Ask if they’d rather bow down before the god-man and save their lives, or if they’d prefer worshipping the one true God and risk their bodies licked by flames.
And with minds made up and hearts resolute, they gave their commitment, their complete devotion.
Is it true?
That revivals always start with a fire in the heart and a flint in the eyes, always through a handful of men dedicated to burn for God?
Revival men are revived men who through sanctified experiences allow their King to come through for them — in their fiery furnace, through the back of their desert, on their blistered feet and in their valleys of hiddenness.
That I want to believe. That I’m holding on to.
Because they allow His fire to refine, and His ways to perfect, they surrender to His care and surround themselves in His arms.
“Fear not [there is nothing to fear], for I am with you; do not look around you in terror and be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen and harden you to difficulties, yes, I will help you; yes, I will hold you up and retain you with My [victorious] right hand of rightness and justice.” (Isaiah 41:10)
Is it true?
That fire will always cause you to search for your true Father?
And that when you’re through? You can glow with the quiet confidence that you have nothing to prove but the heart of the Father to please.
You’ll be able to live with a belief that there is a Father unfailing who’ll always catch you when you’re falling and will hold your fragments when all hell breaks loose, and every significant friendship backfires.
That you’ll thrive not merely survive.
And on the other side of Heaven, we’d see a glimpse of the why.
Why God would place His most prized possessions in the fire, why He’d allow His most precious vessels in the melting pot of distress.
Because He’s growing real sons and daughters out of infancy into maturity.
I say let every fire refine and every wilderness does its wonder.
Because you can count on Him to do the impossible.
He’ll birth in you a vision in the valley, and a light through the dark, dismaying caves of hopelessness.
Even the prison doors of confinement would have to break open. God’s prison ministry always breaks His jailers out.
And when you’ve done with worldly weeping, you will be raised for a heavenly reaping.
Because where the enemy had wanted to sieve you, your Father wants to shift you.
You can believe that every fire will usher you into a new season, into a new place of strength, into a new remaking.
