We all want to escape the fires of hell somehow. Some people actually attend church religiously because they think that provides them with insurance against those fires. God gives us that protection as a gift. It is not something we can earn. Believing Jesus died for our sins, repenting of them and following Him into eternal life is God’s fire insurance for us. After receiving God’s gift of mercy, grace and love, our worship and continual service in His name will show our sincere appreciation of that gift.
There are still other fires we go through in our Christian life here on Earth; but we never go through them alone. Jesus is right there with us and His Holy Spirit is within us; just as He was with the three young Hebrew men who refused to bow to the idol of gold. He brought them through the flames and out of that fiery furnace unharmed and without even the smell of smoke on their clothing. (Daniel Chapter 3) God uses the fires of adversity and trials to refine us by burning away the impurities within us until He can see His reflection in us; as a silversmith uses fire to purify silver. It is never a comfortable process, even painful at times, but even though it seems like it at the time, He will never allow the flames to devour us or be more than we can stand. He won’t leave us in the fire, but will bring us out of it a much better Christian with an even stronger testimony.
We also encounter pressure in our Christian life. There have been times when I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders and it was crushing me. The world was pressuring me to be squeezed into its sinful mold. My boss pressured me to do more; Christian leaders pressured me to take on even more responsibility in God’s service; my wife needed me to do more for her and for us. Pressure was coming from every direction, but the greatest pressures of all were the ones I placed on myself; to be a better employee, a better husband and a better Christian living in this world but unlike this world. This stressful pandemic we live in now is adding to the pressures most of us feel.
One day, when I was feeling under a lot of pressure, I looked at the diamond ring on my wife’s finger that I had placed there many years earlier with a vow to love, honor and cherish her until death do us part. That diamond began as a common lump of coal. It was tremendous pressure that turned it into that brilliant, lasting symbol of our love. It was then that I realized that God was using pressure to turn me into a brilliant symbol of my love for Him and His love for me.
Do you know a Christian who has been through the fires and pressures of life? Maybe it is even that person you see in the mirror each morning. Can you see the brilliant light of God’s love reflected in their eyes, their smile, their words and their actions? Even more beautiful is the light that emanates from within them like the light through a stained glass window. Ask them if it was all worth it and they will smile and say, “I wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now”.