Through the Year
The Furnace of Testing
Jul 6, 2008
One of the enemies of the life of faith is pride. When you win a victory, you may feel overconfident and start telling yourself that you can defeat any enemy at any time. You start depending on your past experience and your growing knowledge of the Word, instead of depending wholly on the Lord. This explains why the promise of 1 Corinthians 10:13 is preceded by the warning of verse 12: Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
After you have won a great victory of faith, expect the enemy to attack you or the Lord to test you, or both. This is the only way you can grow in your faith. God uses the tough circumstances of life to build the muscles of your faith and keep you from trusting something other than His Word. Dont try to run away from the problem. It wont work.
When circumstances become difficult and you are in the furnace of testing, remain where God has put you until He tells you to move. Faith moves in the direction of peace and hope, but unbelief moves in the direction of restlessness and fear. He that believeth shall not make haste (Isa. 28:16, kjv). In times of testing, the important question is not, How can I get out of this? but, What can I get out of this? (See James 1:112.) God is at work to build your faith. God alone is in control of circumstances.
Todays verse: "These have come so that your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed" (1 Peter 1:7, niv).
Read: 1 Corinthians 10:113
Action assignment: Are you being tested in some way? Dont give up. Ask God to help you be patient and to get you through victoriously. Then when the pressure is off, give Him the glory. Find the song "Day by Day" and read it and sing it.
