It’s Your Trial. Guilty? or Innocent?

You have gone through the fire. What do I mean by that? I mean you have gone through a trial so testing – you wanted to give up, quit, retreat back, lie, hide, go back to the way things were, anything to get away from the fire that has singed the hair on your arms and body.  Nobody willingly steps into a burning fire standing before them. I recently went through one. A trial (or test) so hot in heat, high in flame, I didn’t know if I would get through it. But I did. Last night during service at church, the Lord gave me this revelation of trials and fire:

You are in the middle of the fire. It’s hot, burning you, it hurts, you are crying, you don’t want to be there and you are not sure how long you can stand it. You want to step back out of the fire (not deal with it) but all that does is put you back to where you were. By staying in the fire, the ugly, hideous sins (whatever your sin is insert it here) are being burned off. Your flesh is burning off layer by layer and falling to the ground. It’s left as ashes. You step through to the other side of the fire. A new layer of skin is created (a new layer of you) which is a glowing ember. A glow that represents the Lord Himself on you, covering you and shining in you. You have been refined. As you turn around and see the ashes that are left, they can never become what they were. You have traded ashes for beauty. 

For me, this hits strongly. My recent trial will never be again. My ashes remained in that fire and my new beauty is glowing with God‘s radiance. I’m His ember. If you don’t want that ember to die out – you must continue to feed oxygen to it (scripture, prayer and worship with God). Otherwise you become a cold piece of coal. Who would want that?