BLOG UPDATE – First of all, I want to apologize to the readers of this bible study blog for the massive delay in me posting anything new. I can’t believe it myself, but it’s been 3 1/2 years. I don’t know how the time flew, but I got wonderfully busy with my photography business, the Women’s Bible Study I lead out of my home and mothering my three children – can we say the teenage years involve intense parenting or what?! All is good, I think I just needed to get my sea legs for the new waters I am sailing in. And here we are 3.5 years later.
I hadn’t realized the reach this little blog with its 8 posts had until I finally logged on to my google analytics account to see the stats…thousands of people all around the world are reading it. Wow. Its is such a blessing to see it reach so many people. Then I looked at Pinterest and realized the “Receiving the Holy Spirit” post infographic had been re-pinned 34,000 times. Another wow. A little bit of sowing on my part and God is doing a whole lot of watering. I guess I will make more infographics as those seem to resonate the most.
Sorry also for all the un-responded emails, I just read them all now and will email you back soon. Thank you for all your kind words and encouragement, and for taking the time to email me.
I am so excited to resurrect this blog – I feel like I have a million and one posts all happily swimming round in my heart ready to burst if I don’t share it. I can’t wait to start writing again! This post was written in July 2015 and sitting in draft mode the whole time. There is power in the pause, and delay isn’t always a bad thing. I trust the work God the Father is doing in me and in you, so I trust this post is perfectly timed by the Holy Spirit. So, without further adieu..onto the final instalment of the three part Overcoming Suffering Series:
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While Job endured some of the most brutal, heart-wrenching, unrelenting testing known to mankind, Job saw the purpose of the process God was taking him though: “When he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” Job 23:10
The suffering that both Job and Jesus endured produced a faith proved genuine in them. Jesus learned obedience and was made perfect through His suffering (Hebrews 5:8-10, Hebrews 2:10-11). God’s plan through the suffering we overcome on Earth has a heavenly purpose for when we spend eternity with him as co-heirs with Christ.
SATAN WILL ASK TO SIFT US
Satan will ask God for permission to test us. He requested God to lift His hedge of protection over Job so Satan could test Job’s faith (Job 1:6-12), and he asked God for permission to sift Peter and the other disciples (Luke 22:31-32). Satan is our adversary, and thankfully Jesus and the Holy Spirit are our Advocates. Just as Jesus prayed for Peter to remain faithful, Jesus will intercede for us as well. When Peter did deny Christ, it broke him. Peter’s faith did not fail, but he let his fear of losing his own life come between his relationship with Jesus.
Satan must have thought at the moment of Peter’s third denial, that he had won. Satan did not win though, because Peter came back more faithful, and stronger from that trial. Jesus knew that Peter would turn away because He said “And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” I love that Jesus focused on Peter’s triumph, rather than Peter’s tumble. Peter’s recovery was far stronger than his fall, and he was a powerful witness for the Lord.
This is exactly what we are to do when we have come out of a testing, whether we have failed or not, because God never fails us, and there will always be a testimony (Revelation 12:11) to come from it that we can strengthen each other with.
THE REFINER’S FIRE
Imagine with me the refining processes silver and gold endure to become pure.
Silver is refined in a crucible over high heat. It is an intimate process with the silver-smith sitting over the silver, adjusting the heat of the fire under it. The silver is never left alone, but continues going over the flames until the silver-smith can see his reflection, like a mirror in the silver. Silver makes the best mirrors as it is has the best surface reflectivity. Our silver-smith is Jesus (Malachi 3:3), and He will carefully tend to us, and test us through trails until we become more like Him.
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
With the refining of gold, its impurities are removed by the heat of a furnace in order for it to become pure. The purer the gold, the more valuable it is, and the softer and more malleable it becomes.
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26
Now picture that to God, the valuable substance is our heart; the impurities are our sin and old nature that we have not yet nailed to the cross, overcome and died to; and the source of heat He uses to extract the impurities is the temptations, trials, testings, training and discipline He requires us to go through. God is making us holy (Leviticus 11:44-45; Leviticus 20:26; 1 Peter 1:16).
For those of us who are in Christ, we are being made holy to be able to stand in His presence and spend eternity with Him. The work Jesus did on the cross is a finished work. We have been made perfect forever (Hebrews 10:14). God’s process of making us holy for eternity is the trails and testing we endure.
God is holy, and He requires that we must be holy to be in His presence (Leviticus 11:44-45). Metaphorically, a holy heart is a heart of gold. We have all heard the saying “She has a heart of gold” to mean the person has a pure heart, and is rare and valuable. Like the most valuable 24k gold, when God works on our hearts to become more like His son Jesus, our hearts take on the qualities of 24k gold: rare, pure, soft, malleable, flawless (Psalm 12:6) and valuable.
“The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart.” Proverbs 17:3
THE FIRST TEST OF THE HEART
When Jesus was an infant it was prophesied over Him that He was destined to cause the falling and rising of many, and that He would be a sign that would be spoken against “so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.” ( Luke 2:33-35). The key words here are “so that.” Jesus came SO THAT the thoughts of our hearts will be revealed; revealed to show that we believe Him to be the risen son of God and the only name under heaven by which we are saved (Acts 4:12; John 3:16; Romans 10:8-18; 1 Corinthians 15:1-6), or revealed to show our rejection (John 12:48, Matthew 12:30) or indifference of Him. The very existence of the person of Jesus Christ is the first test for every person’s heart. Jesus’ presence on earth was God’s choice to be the sign that we would either look too, or purposely look away from, a sign that would be the definitive revealer of our hearts. In chemistry, a litmus test is a test that uses a single indicator to prompt a decision. Jesus is the litmus test. Jesus is that single indicator that will prompt a decision to be either be for Him or against Him.
TAKING UP OUR CROSS
Once our hearts have been revealed to love Jesus, He counsels us to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him (Matthew 16:24). Jesus also counsel’s us in Revelation 3:18 to buy gold from Him refined in the fire. But how do we purchase His gold?
This refined gold that can only be purchased from Christ is the purity of our hearts. When we come to Christ, a new spirit is birthed in us and we become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our old nature has been crucified with Christ on the Cross. Believing in Jesus’ death for our salvation is the transaction, made possible by His sacrifice, to purchase His fire-refined gold. The spiritual currency in this transaction is our denial of our self (Galatians 5:24 and Galatians 2:20) and of our old-nature tendencies through the trials we face, the very fires we go through.
The denial of our old nature is our cross. The cross we are to take up and bare will look different for each of us. Each has our own journey that God will take us on till we come to the place of spiritual maturity He has destined for us individually. The cross we bare could be physical, spiritual or emotional and it can change over the course of our lifetime. For some the cross may be overcoming addictions, mending broken relationships, or breaking unhealthy habits or soul ties; it may be biting our tongue from lying, gossiping or grumbling, or shielding our eyes from coveting or lust. For others it may be remaining patient and controlling our anger, or contending for our sustained joy or justice for others. The combinations of our individual crosses are endless, but the promise in Matthew 11:30 lightens the crosses’ load regardless of what it looks like for each of us: We will never be alone. Jesus Christ is with us every step of the way.
FROM SUFFERING TO HOPE
Romans 5:3-5 admonishes us to rejoice in our sufferings, because it produces perseverance, perseverance produces character and character produces hope. Hope is the ability to remain joyful, and the key to making peace with the truth of Romans 5:3-5 is the revelation of truth found in James 1:2-4:
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
When we come to the Lord, He will always open a door of hope for us. Hosea 2:15 describes the Valley of Anchor – which literally translates as a “valley of trouble”, as being turned into a door of hope. In our valley of trouble the Lord will open of new door of hope, He will birth something new out of our pain.
Our suffering has a goal, and that knowledge alone can aid us in becoming overcomers, along with the comfort that if our suffering is at the careful hand of our maker, something good will always come of it.
“I will not cause pain without causing something new to be born.” Isaiah 66:9 ESV
We are to learn the art of cultivating endurance through the inevitable trials that are to come, and in that process our hope will be restored and our joy will come from an eternal source: Jesus. Our hearts of stone will be chipped away by Him to reveal a heart of flesh that is pure as gold.
I pray that we would seek purity in all things and that we would be presented as pure as refined gold when we stand before our Heavenly Father on that great and awesome day. And as the Apostle Paul prays in 1 Thesselonians 3:13 “May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.”
