1947.52 degrees Fahrenheit is the heat needed to purify or refine gold. Wow! That’s hot! As valuable to this world as gold is, do you know that the Bible speaks clearly that gold is “chicken feed” compared to the worth of your faith in Jesus? Matthew 16:26 sums it up for us,“for what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” One soul is worth more than the whole world.
Knowing the value of one soul, God wants to make sure that it is pure. Like gold, God will allow the heat to be turned up so that we will not be satisfied with the impurities of the world and the flesh. 1 Peter 1:6-7 explains the process this way, 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. As God’s child, you will “suffer grief in all kinds of trials” to “prove the genuineness of your faith…greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire.” Gold is temporary and has no value in the light of eternal life. His refinement of our faith by trials will “result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” You experience intense heat so that you become pure in your walk with Christ. Each of us has to learn to trust Him. The only way through the fiery trials of life is Jesus, who declares clearly, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
1 Corinthians 10:13 is a great verse to be committed to memory, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”
In Daniel 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow down and worship King Nebuchadnezzar which infuriated the king. He commanded these three men to be thrown into a fiery furnace 7x’s the normal heat. No way could they get out of this predicament. These three men placed their faith totally in God. Here is what King Nebuchadnezzar saw in the furnace, “24Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” 25 He answered and said, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.”
Has He turned the heat up in your life? Invite God into the fiery furnace with you. He is refining you to look like His Son.
Barnabas Man 