Okay Let’s clear this up! Father in the name of Jesus, give me the words, let it minister to hearts everywhere I pray in Jesus’ name! amen. WHAT IS FIRE? First of all God doesn’t cause it. Revelation 3 “I council you to buy gold (from the fire). Jesus said this to John, who wrote Revelation.

OH there is confusion out there about this, and what it means exactly. First, I thought we couldn’t buy the things of God?? Well you buy it with your decision (a purchase of sorts) and you buy it with a decision, to walk through the fire.  Fire is painful, scary, could kill you, dangerous! Therefore, you choose to walk through it, trusting God IN this fire.

The Fire is hardship, pain, unpleasant. Jesus endured fire. criticism, misunderstandings, accusing you falsely…….(and more) all of this is fire.

Because of God’s mercy, we are not consumed. He leads us into fire, he leads us out. People who refuse to allow God to do this saying “that can’t be God,” are not refined, become lukewarm, and they are like those who did not build with precious stones as described in the book of Matthew. They do not have “Faith like Gold.”

Often, Pentecostals are just certain no suffering should happen, GOD WANTS TO DELIVER YOU! They quickly quote, and say. True, God does want to deliver you (from evil.) Others believe God brought the suffering, (That he really ISN”T Good all the time) Still others say that we should just suffer (continually) and sing songs of Joy, as if we are never to expect anything better! (And these are all Christians!)

No wonder the rest are confused, think we are wacky, and run from as fast as we can.

“Christians speak with forked tongues’ they say! (And we do, sometimes). The truth is we choose to walk through suffering, most of the time, or we refuse to do it. When people take their own life, they are choosing not to. When people run from their critics, they are choosing not to (suffer). In My case yes, I finally did leave abuse AFTER I’d been refined in the fire of abuse. WHEN I left all was forgiven and I prayed for my abuser, and still do. The refining fire of THAT type was over with, and done.

So see, with the right attitude, God wins every time! You are either walking in fire, overcoming, getting commended by the Lord for it, obtaining something more precious than Gold (a refined faith) or you are being delivered (God gets the Glory) Or you are resting now in green pastures for awhile, (God still gets the Glory) and the people who seem to get away with running (from everything) and not facing it? They are messing themselves up super bad, because they are not prepared for anything.

These are the type that avoid every trial, refuse to be led (by the Holy spirit) into types of wilderness experiences (and things) that refine them,  which are also very uncomfortable, and they never learn God will NOT LET the fire consume or destroy them IF they trust Him.

And these are also the same types, who drain people, wear them out, want someone to do all their praying for them, refuse to learn anything new, and completely refuse to grow.

In the book of Acts, a ship crashed and fell to pieces because they would not listen to Paul. He said basically, “well I warned you but you wouldn’t listen.” They survived, but were ship wrecked. Paul went through a fire in all this as well. God never said he would CAUSE Paul’s suffering, He just told him it would happen.

His stand for Jesus came with a price. There was criticism, being jailed, being run out of town. In some cases he was beaten unfairly, all because he would not go with the program society decided was best.

Everyone sympathizes with those being tortured for their faith overseas somewhere, but hardly anyone cares if it’s a woman who is relentlessly persecuted by her husband, she is supposed to stay and take it, while we pray for those poor missionaries overseas. I have met people who are in the fire of refining every day of their lives, and nobody cares, because it does not fit in the neat little box of what we decided is Persecution.

Many suffer their lives being burned to the ground, their marriage goes up in flames, all because one would not bow to the idol of drugs, partying, criminal behavior, and the like.  They suffer silently, because often even the church does not recognize their plight…….

They are busy helping those with “REAL PROBLEMS” (so they say) and wonder why some of these don’t come to church anymore…….

But I am here to encourage, that all who are going through the fire willingly because God asked you to, He will preserve you, deliver you, get you out to the other side………

He did it for me, He will do it for you. With Love, Laura Grace, Author, Grace to the Rescue