Let The Fire Beautify Your Life

Sometime ago, I was counseling a lady on the phone; she was lamenting and trying to make me see reason with her on why she needs to avoid the challenge she was facing at that time. As she was bringing forth her points, I was also letting her see the reason why she must persevere and endure the hardship in order to allow God to perfect His plans in her life. She would not agree with my view, and it got to a point that I had to raise my voice to utter the following words, “Stop running away from the fire, it beautifies.” After a while, I heard her voice from the other end, “Are you sure fire beautifies?” So, I took it up from there and I explained what I meant by that statement, and after a lengthy discussion we reached a conclusion.She agreed to face the situation no matter what.Today, she is blessing God for not quitting because her life has been beautified.

Not all fire beautifies, some are destructive or consuming, and in such a situation you must run dearly for your life toward God, who is the only one that can protect you. Any fire that is taking God from your life is not worth enduring. Fire could be in the form of suffering, hardship, trials, temptation, affliction, examination, and even ailments.Fire could be compulsory, optional, permanent, temporary, but necessary. It could be caused as a result of one’s mistake; it could be allowed for test of faith, or it could be engineered by enemies through the loopholes we ourselves created.

The fire we are talking about here is a refiner’s fire; the kind of fire that has the hand of God in it.The furnace of affliction in the family of God is always for refinement, never for destruction.Refiner’s fire that we allow will always lead to perfection of God’s will for our lives. Come to think of it, raw gold that was subjected to furnace of fire will come out refined and purified, but the process of such refinement and purification is always a tough period.

This is applicable in our lives today. Though we know quite well that the fire we are facing now is as a result of our mistakes, we know the fire is from enemies as a result of our own sins or carelessness, but we fail to acknowledge the fact that now that we are in Christ, and we have sought for His forgiveness, and we believe He has forgiven us, that we should forget the past and start the present with God without making reference to our dark past (1 John 1:9).

What do I mean?  Some of us believe that since the affliction caused by our mistakes or sins has not left our lives then it automatically means God has not forgiven us or that enemies are still pursuing us. So we center our prayer on forgiveness and wrestling with imaginary enemies. Some of us have been centering our prayers on these two (forgiveness and killing of enemies) for problems we have been facing for quite a while, and our prayers still remain unanswered. For this we keep on losing our peace, allowing bitterness to creep into our heart. Have you thought of the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ in chapter 5 of the book of St. Matthew enjoining us to be a peacemaker? Please be aware of the fact that whatever you declare is what you get; if you declare peace you will get peace; if you declare war you will get war.

Apostle Paul made mention of his thorn in the flesh in the scripture, but I never read where he centered his prayer on enemies to get his problem solved. Had it been that he kept on dwelling on his problem, he would not have achieved his mandate. Please, let us stop focusing on irrelevant things; let us stop focusing on our problems, but journey our lives with able God in faith to give us an expected end. Who do you see in that storm; is it God, enemies, or even the devil? Who you focus your attention on will determine the direction or result you will get.

The affliction (or fire) that is still in our lives after forgiveness of our sins, and after doing His will should be seen as a test of our faith even if it is still being engineered by enemies. In the life of Job, we read he was upright but God still allowed Satan to afflict him. But what was his reaction? “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him” (Job 13:15). “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised” (Job1:21).  Job did not understand why God had allowed the things He did, but he knew God was good and therefore continued to trust in Him. Did he run from the affliction? Did he curse his enemies? No, he did not avenge, but he kept on praising God (Job 31:30). Ultimately, that should be our reaction as well.

Redemption to us mankind and God’s glorification would not have been possible if our Lord Jesus Christ did not endure crucifixion on the cross. Being human, it is not easy to endure suffering for a long time, this could be confirmed when Jesus prayed to change God’s plan in spite of the fact that He knows the glory awaiting Him after the cross, and the fact that God is unchanging and does not compromise (Luke 22:42).  Glory be to God, He went through the suffering to enter into His glory (Luke 24:26). Our Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated the principle of ‘fire before beauty’ when He rebuked Peter for praying for the suffering never to take place (Matt. 16:23). A lot of us have been praying against the will of God for our lives; we have been busy praying to God to remove the fire that is supposed to launch us to our greatness. Please stay in the fire; it is not destructive; it is refining to equip us to be spiritually inclined and gain fruit of the Spirit.

Even if you found yourself in a destructive fire and you are sure of your right standing with God, rest assured that before you were thrown into the fire God had been there; the battle is not yours but God’s. We know what happened to three Hebrew men in the scripture, Daniel 3:17, 25. More reason we must be praying for His grace to be holy at all times; we must be watchful and earnestly pray for grace to resist temptation. His grace is sufficient for us.

As you keep on believing God and waiting patiently for Him, His glory shall never depart from you in Jesus’ name.

Perhaps you have not come in contact with Jesus Christ the great deliverer or you need to restitute your way, it is not too late to know Him all  you need to do is declare Him as your Lord and Saviour, confess and repent from your sins.  He will save you and give you a brand new beginning, and there after pursue the spiritual things to give your soul and heart permanent peace and rest they deserve.

We encourage person to person counseling, if after reading this article you still want to talk to us, do not hesitate to do so.  Please email us via counseling@rcgfoundations.org.  You are blessed in Jesus’ name.