Heart Tracks - The Furnace

"I will bring that group through the fire and make them pure, just as gold and silver are refined and purified by fire. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, 'These are My people,' and they will say, 'The Lord is our God.' " Zechariah 13:9..."I now know my suffering wasn't proof of God's punishment or absence. Instead, each impossibility provided a backdrop against which I could experience a new depth of God's reality. Although I still don't understand all the whys, His love for me cannot be denied." Michelle Cushatt

There is so much talk about the love of God these days, but so little is based on reality. I think we expect Him to love us with our definition of love and not His. I think the reality of this is shown when we walk through suffering. The first thing we tend to question is His love. Certainly the world looks at it that way. How many unbelievers ask, "If God is a God of love, how could He allow that?" Those are deeper theological questions than can be spoken of here. Suffice to say that they leave out the most important element; we live in a fallen world where sin has entered the equation and in full force. Evil and the suffering that always accompanies it will not be removed until Christ's return. His love is shown not in the absence of suffering, but His presence with us in it.

Zechariah 13:9 tells of the Father's dealing with His people Israel. The impurity of their sin and disobedience filled them. God, in His love, took them through fire in order to cleanse them of the impurity. Fire burns. Pain comes. He had no delight in any of it, but in His love and desire for their ultimate good, He took them through it because He had for them a life grander and deeper than they could ever have imagined. In this dark, sin stained world, He does the same with us. Look at the lives of His people, through Old Testament and New. He led them to and through fiery furnaces, prisons, caves, and all manner of affliction. Moses, Joseph, David, the prophets, Peter, Paul, John, all of the disciples. For each awaited a jail cell, a headsmen's axe, a prison island, a cross. In His greatest act of love, He gave His Son and the offer of eternal life through the pain and suffering of His cross. A cross that led to a tomb, and then to His resurrection. This is the way of God, the way of the cross. This is love. His love looks beyond the present and into eternity.

Someone said that we need to first stop asking Him to help us and realize something more; He first wants to kill us. Kill that which is killing us, sin in all of its forms. Addictions, impulses, attitudes, behaviors. All of them gross impurities that can only be made pure in the furnace, at the altar of His cross. And all taking place out of the heart of His love. All because He is leading us beyond just the events of this passing world and into that world which will never pass away. In the furnace, we encounter Him, and when He brings us out, we can minister to others in their time in the flames.

Michelle Cushatt is a woman who has suffered physically, emotionally and spiritually. She knows well the heat of the furnace. In that furnace she has discovered not only the heat of the flames, but the depths of His love in them. May we as well. His love is perfectly shown in Christ's cross. May we not fear it, but embrace it. It's His portrait of love.

Blessings,
Pastor O