Into the Fire

What are the things that you look forward to in life? Summer? Graduation? Vacation? Kids moving out? Retirement?

What do you do during the seasons of pain? You know what I mean, those times when we suffer. Maybe it’s the loss of a job followed by a long stretch of unemployment, a time when you question your ability to provide for your family, your value in the marketplace, your significance to God. Maybe it’s the loss of a loved one, a time of grief and regrets, a time of loneliness and emptiness. Maybe it’s a season of illness, maybe immensely painful for a time or maybe progressive, degenerative, and terminal. What do you do during times like these?

How do seasons of suffering affect your faith? Are you the same person spiritually when you come out as when you went in? I’ve found that few people emerge the same as they entered. So, is your faith stronger or shaken? Has it become more sure or is it feeble or absent when you emerge from the darkness into the light?

That is what our Grace Church family finds itself in right now, a season of suffering. The emotions are all across the spectrum. Some are in extreme dispair; there is no doubt in their mind that they are in the crucible of pain. The ones who are pleased perhaps don’t realize it, but they are in a very similar place. Because God’s Word tells us that times of suffering come for the testing of our faith.

You see, some of us profess faith and think we’re good-to-go. But when the testing by fire comes, we find out the value of that faith. Scripture tells us that we will all eventually be tested in this way:

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. 1 Corinthians 3:11-15

By Peter tells us that we don’t have to wait for Judgment Day to find out if we have genuine faith. He says that there are trials in life which serve as pre-tests, seasons God allows so we can know how we’re doing in our journey of faith:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade-- kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 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. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:3-9

So, Grace family, we are all in a time of testing. The future of Grace Church is a product of the responses of each of us to that testing. It could be lots worse; the church Peter was writing to was being beaten, tortured, and fed to wild animals. But the test is the same. What response will our faith produce?