Hello readers, thanks for reading again today, I’ve had some time off just recently so had a bit more time to write. I wrote part 1 for my 2023 review yesterday… and I want to continue on today with Part 2.

Part 1 was perhaps not the most cheery, but nobody likes someone who is pretending. The Bible wouldn’t be a comfort if it didn’t relate to our reality, and it certainly does, just like our Saviour did “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same”.

In reflecting on the year I’ve had I’ve had a bit of “poor me” going on. And I need to stop that, and will be.

I was thinking about this verse from Daniel 3:27 “And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king’s counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.’

If you don’t have the familiarity, this verse follows a sequence of events which sees three Hebrew men “Shadrach, Meshach And Abednego” cast into a fiery furnace by an angry king because they refused to worship him.

Then a miracle happened. You looking for your own “Christmas miracle”? There was a fourth man in the fire. Not “a son of the gods” like modern Bibles tell you… but The Son Of God like the true Bible tells you. … Jesus Christ was in the fiery furnace with them! And if he is the same yesterday, today and forever… then what happened “yesterday” with these men, happens today for us, and will be until the last trial of this present evil world is past.

Where I live we do at least one “burn off” a year to burn our fire pile that steadily gathers over the months. And we also have a wood fire… and if you’ve ever been near a camp fire or larger for any amount of time, often after you come away from it, you can still smell the fire on your clothes.

How does this relate to me? Well the Bible speaks of our fiery trial as Christians in 1 Peter which we are told “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:” Note –  it “IS” to try you… if you are saved. Not might, not maybe!  Expect it!

So what that means is… we will go through the fire. And better now isn’t it? … than at judgment when it burns up our false works, false profession and wasted life! 1 Corinthians 3:13. I’ve often thought about what of my life will abide that final fire if my life is barely surviving the small flames of testing and trial here? Hmm, I can see my life’s works burning up now… and that’s worrying.

I’ve found I’ve wanted to be an exception. I want an exception from that verse. I want a free pass from the fiery trials God! How many of us have an exception mentality in Christianity, not just to trials, but to the authority of his word. We don’t mind making a few exceptions in standards for ourselves either. How many Christians make all these exceptions for themselves that they would condemn others for! And I’m guilty of that as well.

But the point is, it’s not a strange thing to go through the fire. … Just a thought, but it makes what Israel did in making their children pass through the fire really bad doesn’t it. They did it so much to their false god Moloch who they constantly fraternized with. I’m not a parent yet, hopefully one day although but a pipe dream, but imagine volunteering your children for the fire rather than going through it yourself. Shouldn’t the parent lay up for the child?

As I’ve thought about the fiery trial of 1 Peter, I realized in all honesty that I don’t truly know the fiery trial that many Christians in history have gone through and still do. So I’ve got some nerve even writing about it.

You as a reader may be going through a trial now. And I want to encourage you in it. Because it doesn’t need to have power over your life. God can use those flames for good, and they don’t need to leave your life a bruised, bloodied and battered … a scorched, singed, dry, barren, burnt mess. So many people in our society are victims, and the smell of the fire is very strong on them.

Think about Jacob, even after he heard Joseph was alive and seen him… the smell of fire was still on him! When given the opportunity to testify of his God before a king… he said in Genesis 47:9 “And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”

Oh I’ve sounded a bit like that already, and I’m not even there yet. Do I really want to be like that? I’m in danger of becoming like that. Will that smell of this years fire hang around into the new year? Well one thing I know, time won’t take that smell away… Jesus Christ will. You know when he sweat great drops of blood and when he said “I thirst” on the cross? … he was going through the fire like I will never know and don’t want to know anything about.

Was the smell on him when he forgave them on the cross? Hardly. He was given vinegar for water, and yet that did not sour and bitter him. And I thought about the word “power” in that verse of Daniel 3:27… because I need God’s power – or the power of bitterness, unforgiveness, resentfulness… it could easily take me down. What will master my life? Who is the master of my life?

“Neither were their coats changed” I had never noticed that before writing this blog. How many people are so changed after their fiery experience… but not in a good way. How many people fall out of the way because they blame God and others!

I think the way we have to look at trials, as easy as it is to say, and as hard as it to actually do, is to see but moreso > trust < what God is doing in it. Because we in all likelihood won’t see it’s redemptive value. Job said in the midst of the biggest baddest trial of his life “But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” You know what, God knows my way more than I know it. He knows what I’m doing, he knows what he is doing… but do I trust him?

My suffering may be for wrong doing, and it often has been, but it may not be too. Job wasn’t suffering for doing anything wrong… yet he was being tried. And this whole blog wouldn’t be complete without “turning the cake” and seeing the other side of this thing.

You know… Jesus wants to take us to the other side “Let us go over unto the other side of the lake.” If you know where in the Bible that comes from, and what story… you know how it ends! “And they came over unto the other side of the sea”. But remember the great storm that was between! I feel like I’ve been taking on water, and my ship seems destined for the bottom… but at the other end of the storm was the salvation of a precious soul on the other side.

The ”other side” of this cake is that in the trial, there is gold that God is wanting to bring forth in our life. You know, true salvation is gold. But a faith not tried and tested, and not purified… you don’t know whether it’s gold… or whether it’s cheap junk yet… do you! 1 Peter 1:7 “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:”

I’ve noticed this year that my old man isn’t so old. He’s getting old in that I’m sick of him, but he still continually makes appearances in my life. He makes appearances when I retaliate, when I cut back at someone who I think has wronged me, he makes appearances in all sorts of unsavory ways. In fact he’s been taking over my life at times. I’m told to die to that old man. Maybe the trials are to bring him out into the open and deal with him more clearly.

Job sat in the ashes, but God gave him beauty for ashes. Job sat among the ashes of a burnt up life, and yet something had remained and was growing stronger and shining brighter than ever, something so precious, something Satan and this world could not corrupt. If you are saved, there is something incorruptible in you. God is incorruptible, his word is incorruptible (no matter how much they try) and his salvation is incorruptible. I and we have God to thank for that.

No, none of this might make it “easier” for now, because sometimes it cannot be eased, it’s just something we’ve got to go through, but even when we look back, we see God still did have mercy in it. To every reader, may God guide you into all truth, even if it’s hard times right now, may God bless you, his true grace ever with you and have a great day!

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