To Encourage You

1 Peter 1:6-8 “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Have you ever been disappointed, even disgusted, with your own reactions to events in your life? Has your spouse ever said anything to you to which you reacted in a way for which you were later sorry?  I know I have – and much more often than I’d like to admit.  Have you ever faced a circumstance where you reacted with fear and anxiety, all the while knowing that you should “be anxious for nothing” as the Bible clearly commands?  Have you ever reacted to another person’s words or actions with impatience or harshness, only later to be reminded that “Love is patient? Love is kind.”  If you have experienced this (and, surely everyone has that calls himself or herself a believer), you have simply experienced the very thing that the verses above speak of, i.e., the refining fire of God. 

You see, when trials or tests come, the true inner condition of our souls finds its way to the surface. As Jesus told us “out of the abundance of the heart (our) mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).  But it is because our hearts are “deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9) that we can fool ourselves into thinking that we are so much better than we really are.  But God isn’t content to leave us there.  He has all kinds of ways to put the squeeze on us so that what is truly inside us bubbles up for all, including us, to see.  That’s His refining work.

God would have us be like gold, refined, pure, shining forth with His own glory, but like gold which must be refined by fire, we must be refined as well.  The old hymn “How firm a foundation” says it so well with these words: “When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace all sufficient shall be thy supply; the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.” 

May God help us to be encouraged by the fact that though so often “the dross” shows up in our reactions when the squeeze is on, it’s because of the Lord’s love for us that He sovereignly works through our circumstances in life so that we can see what He already knows.  And may He have His way in this refining process that the dross actually is consumed and the gold that He would produce in and through our lives is indeed, refined.  May “He Who began a good work in (us) bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6), for surely that work will continue until that very day.