Fiery Seasons – Part 2

Housecleaning is messy and smelly and often looks worse initially as you do it. Those of you who have bit the bullet to clean out that fridge with the disgusting mystery odor, know you have to take everything out and hunt for the most hidden, funky, spoiling unidentifiable mass in the back corner. This prospect is enough to make us want to slam the door and pretend that you saw and smelled nothing. So my question to you is: What hidden, funky, spoiling, unidentifiable mass in the back corner of your soul have you been slamming the door on to deal with later or let fester till you die?

Yeah, cooperating with God to bring out His likeness in us is not for the faint of heart. But let’s be clear, there is a champion inside each and every one of us. You can do and be so much more than you know. You were called for greatness – yes, you! God created you to manifest the glory He has uniquely put inside you. The beauty of it is, that this greatness looks like you – the real, authentic you! You can use the fiery trials that are coming against you to develop that champion. God is not author of evil junk, but He uses the very things that were meant for evil to bring out the champion in you and in me and He does not apologize for it! Talk about rubbing it in the nose of the enemy of our souls. You can use the anger that you have toward evil circumstances to propel you to stay and yield to what God is doing and stand against what the kingdom of darkness wants to do.

The furnace will remove yuck out of you as you discipline yourself not to run from it. Attention all bolters: if you refuse the process, God will graciously let you go around the mountain as many times as it takes to pass the test! He loves you too much to let you be less than who you are. But in the interest of minimizing pain, you may want to get a clue and just go on through! You were made for this!

Even as the furnace takes away things, the furnace can also ADD to you priceless things. Sword making is a great analogy for this. When a sword-smith makes a sword, addition is very much part of the process. Scripture calls us swords to be used powerfully for God’s amazing, breathtaking purposes. Isaiah 49:1-3 (NIV) says “Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations: Before I was born the Lord called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver. He said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.”

Zechariah 9:12-13 (NIV) echoes that with “return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you. I will bend Judah as I bend my bow and fill it with Ephraim. I will rouse your sons, Zion, against your sons, Greece, and make you like a warrior’s sword.”

I want to be clear theologically about this last scripture as an important sideline. Under the new covenant, God is not in the business of bashing one nation while favoring another. In Christ, the ground is totally level and everything, including favor, is about an individual’s relationship with Christ and the completed work HE accomplished (Galatians 3:28).

The following abbreviated summary of the sword-crafting process is fascinating and helps to bring this concept home. Steel is often used as material for a sword because it is very sturdy and strong with some flexibility. The rudimentary fashioned, beveled, and sharpened sword is hardened by heating the whole blade until it is red-orange hot (about 1800°F). At this temperature, a magnet will no longer stick to it. Its’ hardness is locked in by quenching it in oil. The next part of the process is designed to soften it a bit in order to remove brittleness that could cause it to shatter if hit with hard objects, while keeping the edge sharp. This is called “tempering” and is done by heating up the sword again to about 800°F. Once it gets to a nice wheat color, it is taken it out and dipped in the oil it to quench it again to lock in the strength. After this, it is time to polish up the sword.

What does this mean for us? To be aligned with God as His swords, we must be strong and flexible. Things must be cut away from our hearts and characters. Our edges must be beveled and sharpened. We must be sanded and then hardened in the furnace. At the right heat, negative things that used to be attracted to us and stick to us, no longer will. It is then that the heat is quenched in the comfort, healing and strengthening grace of God. However, we cannot get too brittle in our strength that we would break when contacting hard things. We must be tempered by lower heat to be brought to a harvest wheat color. Again, God quenches the heat and locks in strength as well as flexibility. We must be polished by sequential people and situations that are abrasive, so that we reflect ever more clearly the image of our Creator.

God does not orchestrate every fiery furnace, but He does move in those situations to bring strength, flexibility, a sharp cutting edge and His image. He promises to make all things work out for our good (Romans 8:28). We can trust Him to passionately hang with us, as He relentlessly refuses to let us alone to be less than we really are. So if we are going to “go through”, let’s make sure to cooperate with Him and get every bit of gain for our pain. You can do this! You are a champion!

To discover more about your true identity and the champion Love created you to be, be sure to download my free chapter “The Object of God’s Passion”, from my book, Marked by Love.