Ellis
Jennifer Schuldt wrote this devotional. She said, “[a] wildfire in Andilla, Spain, scorched nearly 50,000 acres of woodland. However, in the middle of the devastation, a group of nearly 1,000 bright green cypress trees remained standing. The trees’ ability to retain water had allowed them to safely endure the fire.”
The word fire automatically brings to mind something that is not comfortable. In some cases, the word fire strikes fear into the heart. Fire is known for its ability to bring destruction and damage to structures and loss of lives and everything in its path. Fire is no friend to the flesh because of the pain and agony that it inflicts.
The right kind of fire destroys everything in its path. Take a look at California, where fire swept through the state, leaving mass destruction, for example. If we want to totally destroy something, we usually use fire as a method to do so. Fire burns, as some of us have had to learn the hard way. It can leave scars that we have to carry with us for the rest of our lives.
Having watched a sister of mine experience the anguish of being burned by fire, I know the devastation that fire can bring. We’ve heard all too often how fire has destroyed the homes and lives of people who could not escape the fire. Whatever fire comes in contact with, it consumes. It is the one thing that we have to watch when using it. Unless it is contained, it can spread and cause untold damage.
My friends, I think all of us have had an unpleasant experience at one time or another with fire. Fire can be a rough way to die. It is no wonder, then, that when we want to describe something in the worst way, we use fire as a means to describe it. All we have to say is, “I’m going through the fire right now,” and everybody automatically knows that you are going through a very rough and tough time.
In August, over the last few weeks and the heat wave sweeping our country is a testimony as to how hot it really is. Still, it reminds us of something else, too, that there is a place much hotter than this, a fire that will never be quenched. In fact, there’s brimstone there as well and no rest day or night ( Rev. 20:10-15). That’s why we thank God for Jesus, who, because of what He did on Calvary, the shedding of his precious blood, we, the Christian believer, have escaped such a place through our Lord and Savior.
Community this morning, nobody likes to be burned, and nobody likes to be in the fire. Spiritually speaking, fire is what God uses to refine his children, to burn off the elements about us that are not like him. God uses fire to chasten us when we stray away from him, to bring us back to Him (Heb. 12:5,6). Then God uses fire to keep us on our knees, to bring us to a place in Him where He can use us for his glory.
We ought not to complain all the time when God puts us in the fire because it is this place, the place of fire, that God has made some of His most faithful saints. Ask anybody that has done great things for God, somebody that God is using in a mighty way, and they will tell you that it was in “the place of fire” that they saw his glory. It is there, in the fire, that God lifted them up!
See, elevation comes through preparation, and preparation comes through being in the fire!
We often tell the Lord, “Lord, I want you to use me!” When we pray that prayer, we had better be ready to go in the fire! Now I realize this morning that as I write, somebody is in the fire this morning, and it’s burning them up! But I want to encourage you when I say, “It may be burning, but it will not consume you!”You all read that right here! I don’t care how hot the fire is raging in your life. You will not be burned up. In fact, you will not be burned at all!
The Lord said to His people in Israel, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. He said, “When you walk through the FIRE, you shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon you (Isa. 43:1,2).”
How many of us reading can say amen because just when you were about to lose your mind in the fire, God blew it out, and you came out unscathed! The reason you sang the way you sang, and serve the way you serve, and worship the way you worship is because you have been in the fire! Here we see three men who find themselves in the fire (Dan. 3:19-25)!
And like these men, who were guilty of nothing more than just refusing to bow down to the culture of the day, their commitment was to God, and if you and I take a stand for God, lift up Jesus, stand against culture, we will find ourselves in the fire! They were cast into the midst of the fiery furnace alive! The King said, “Did we not throw in the fire three men? They answered, True, O king.” He said, “I see four men loose, walking in the fire, and they have no hurt, and the fourth is like the Son of God.” This same fourth man is walking with you in the fire.