The church of the 21st Century has a mandate to nurture relationships with one another. With all the discouragement in the world, there is a growing need for affirmation in our lives. How many of you have had someone to believe in your dreams, to believe in your hopes and aspirations? Growing are the numbers of people who have achieved success in an area of their life, yet lack anyone to point out their potential.
I find it amazing how easy it is for us to see potential in other people and find it hard to compliment them on their abilities. We also seem to have the ability to see other peoples potential, yet have difficulty unlocking the hidden potential within ourselves.
We need to invest time in nurturing to stimulate the potential we possess for without nurturing, our inner strengths may remain dormant. We need to become a church that is filled with great affirmation to each other, investing our lives in the lives of others, affirming their personhood.
One thing that I have noticed is that just about everyone will invest in a success, but church, aren’t we glad when someone supports us when we are somewhat of a risk? God has made that kind of investment in our lives, and He is continually working to nurture us to the potential that He has entrusted in us. That is the refining process we go through in this life.
God refines us, bringing out our potential through fire. Fire will not destroy gold, but it does purify it. You are God’s gold in this generation, and when God gets ready to polish His gold, He uses fiery trials for nothing will bring luster to your character and commitment to your heart than opposition. The finished product is a result of the fiery process. When we see someone shining with the kind of brilliance that enables God to look and see His image in that person, rest assured, you are looking at someone who has been through the furnace of affliction.
God places His prized possession in the fire, and the vessels that He draws the most brilliant glory from often are exposed to the melting pot of distress. I have a good news bad news thing for you. Let me give you the bad news first. Even those who live godly lives will suffer persecution. Now for the good news. You might be in the fire but God controls the thermostat! He knows how hot it needs to be to accomplish His purpose in your life.
Every test we go through has degrees. There are people who have experienced similar distress, but they have done so with varying degrees. God knows the temperature that will burn away the impurities for His purpose.
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Matthew 3:11-12 (READ)
God’s hand fans the flames that are needed to teach patience, prayer and other valuable lessons. We need His correction even though we might not enjoy it. His Fatherly correction conforms us as legitimate sons and daughters. Hebrews 12:8 states, But if you are without discipline of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Church, God has made a major investment in our lives. First through the price of redemption paid for on the Cross at Calvary when Christ died for all of our sins.
Let’s consider this investment. Do you know anyone who makes an investment that does so without wanting to make a return for that investment? People who invest in stocks, bonds, businesses, marriage, family, all have an expectation of return on the investment of their time, talents, and finances. This being the case, what then would cause a perfect God to invest in an imperfect mankind?
The Apostle Paul wrote, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us." According to this Scripture, we all possess treasure, but its excellence is not of us, but it is of God, which implies the treasure originates from God. It is accumulated in us and we present it back to Him.
No farmer plants a field because he wants more ground. His expectation is in the seed that he plants. The ground is just the environment for the planted seed. The seed is the farmers investment, the harvest his return, or more accurately his inheritance as the outer encasement of the seed dies in the ground. You see, the harvest cost the seed its life.
In John 12:24, Jesus said, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit.
Church, we are that fertile ground, broken by troubles, enriched by failure, watered by tears. We are a deposit valuable enough to be on satan’s hit list.
To his enemies God says in 1 Chronicles 16:22, Touch not mine anointed and do my prophets no harm Do you know what that says to us today? God will fight to protect the investment He has placed in your life.
Do you remember the story of the three Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace? When the wicked king placed them in the fire, he thought the fire would burn them up. What he failed to comprehend is that they belonged to God, the fire only burned the ropes that bound them together. There have been some people who have speculated that when they were thrown into the fire that God took the heat out of the furnace, but that is not true, for we have to consider the soldiers who threw them into the furnace, they were burned to death at the door. There was plenty of heat in the furnace, but God was in control of the boundaries.
Have you every gone through a dilemma that should have scorched every area of your life, yet you survived the process? Then you know that God is the Lord over the fire.
Someone had said that if you walk in the Spirit, you won’t have to contend with the fire. I believe we are people of faith, but real faith doesn’t mean you won’t go through the fire, real faith means that when you pass through the fire, God will be there with you. The presence of God can turn a burning inferno into a walk through the park. In Daniel 3, the Bible says there was a fourth person in the fire, and the three Hebrews were able to walk around unharmed. King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished when he saw them overcome what had destroyed other men. Church, there is no guarantee that you will not face terrifying situations but if you believe in God, I can guarantee you this, the effects of the circumstances will be dramatically altered.
The Apostle John was on the isle of Patmos, a prison island, and in Revelation Chapter One we find John confined to a cave, but I want you to know, it also showed John the Prisoner, free in the Spirit.
Understand this, satan works feverishly to limit the ministry and reputation of God’s vessels, sometimes using well meaning Christians to further his work, but he can never confine the anointing and the call of God on your life. John’s situation on Patmos proves negative circumstances reveal Christ in you, not veiled from you.
In that dark cave of captivity, John caught a vision. A crisis can clear your perceptions as you behold the face of God, looking for answers that will not be found in the confusion of the situation.
Every ministry gift will eventually confront the cave of loneliness and the prison of ostracized situations. But let the jailer beware---our God has a prison ministry. He tears down the walls of impossibility.
John wrote that he heard the thunderous voice of the Lord, and in the process of seeking the voice, he encountered the seven golden candlesticks which are later revealed as the Church.
What we need is men and women who hear the voice of God before they see the work of God.
When the voice of God led to the presence of Christ, John collapsed in the presence of the Lord. A deluge flooded the cave as Christ opened his mouth, His voice sounded as the noise of many waters, and John wrote that many waters were in His voice, but the fire was on His feet. Effective communication is always transmitted from the base of burning feet. The feet of our Lord, our Consoler, has been through the fire. We need to thank God for the smolder feet of our Lord that runs to meet His children in times of need.
Church, if you are in a fiery trial right now, be advised, it is your faith that is on trial. 1 John 5:4 states For whatever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. It is the shield of faith that quenches the fiery darts of the devil.
Faith cannot alter purpose, it only acts as an agent to assist in fulfilling the predetermined purpose of God. If God’s plan requires that we suffer certain opposition in order to accomplish His purpose, then faith is the vehicle that enables us to preserve and delivers us through the test. Faith is the night watchman send to guard the purpose of God. It will deliver us from the hands of the enemy.
Hebrews 11 speaks of two kinds of faith, and it is important we understand this. There is first, the faith that escapes peril and overcomes obstacles, look at verse 34 (READ).
Secondly, there is that faith that is exemplified through suffering, vs. 36-37 (READ)
There are times in our lives when God will take us from one realm of faith to another. There are multiplicity of fiery trials, but we can thank God that for every trial, there is the faith that enables us. Jesus Christ is, according to Hebrews 12:2, the Author and Finisher of our faith. He knows what kind of heat to place upon us to produce the faith needed for the situation.
As the fires of persecution forces us to make deeper levels of commitment, it is so important that our faith be renewed to match our level of commitment. There is a place in God where the fire consumes every other desire but to know the Lord in the power of His resurrection. At this level, all other pursuits tarnish and seem worthless in comparison.
Perhaps this what what Paul pressed toward, a place of total surrender. (READ PHIL> 3:8-10)
