Romans 5:3-5, James 1:2-4, Romans 8:18, 1 Peter 4:12-19, 2 Corinthians 4:8-10.
The daily fiery trials of the Lord burning the old away, and refining our lives with conviction and repentance is neither comfortable nor easy nor without leaving scars – but He proves Himself by never leaving us, and by healing the wounds where the disease was cut out.
This Word of God, this repeated surgery as I am cut open daily, it is both encouraging and challenging at the same time when our blade is sharp and active against the enemy.
Am I putting up a fight daily?
Is my sword, the Word of God, at my side and being kept sharp and active?
Or have I let the blade become dull so that it is no longer cutting deep into my flesh to remove what needs to be changed in my life?
The Word Of God is powerful, and will have a profound effect on your life. It is the divine instruction of God, inspired and breathed out by Almighty God, creator of everything.
Not reading and considering it’s wisdom is foolish. Pick it up.
Reading it and not understanding is normal initially as we learn to open our eyes and see, as we learn to open our ears and hear, as we step out of the darkness and into the light. Stick to it.
Understanding it and not applying it is useless intellectual stimulation and does not bear the fruit of belief, it only proves the hardness of our own hearts. Experience conviction, know repentance in your life, resist sin.
Trying to dutifully apply it under our own power is futile, and will prove our own weakness and shortcomings daily. Don’t walk in the powerlessness of the flesh, but walk in the Spirit that comes from a life fully surrendered to Christ that is seeking first the kingdom of God. Call on His strength and power.
Expect Him to fulfill His promises.
Trust in Him.
See the change inside that comes from His refining fires.
We who share in the sufferings of Christ, count ourselves blessed, because these trials, these refining fires – they burn away the trash, they melt away the chains of bondage, they kill that old nature and buttery it in the grave – as the new is refined and revealed, as we are changed and healed and made new.
Is there fire burning today in your life, friend?
Do you know the painful pleasure of surgery under the blade of the Word of God?
Have a Word filled day, beloved friend.
Romans 5:3-5 ESV
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
James 1:2-4 ESV
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Romans 8:18
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
1 Peter 4:12-19 ESV
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.
2 Corinthians 4:8-10 ESV
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
John 16:33 ESV
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
Harold J. Ballinger 