24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”
They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”
25 He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”
26 Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!”
So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire
Psalm 66:10
10 For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver.
Zechariah 13:9
9 This third I will put into the fire;
I will refine them like silver and test them like gold.
They will call on my name and I will answer them;
I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’”
Isaiah 48:10
10 See, I have refined you, though not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
Proverbs 17:3
3 The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart.
Isaiah 43:2
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.
Daniel 3:24-26
Have you ever wondered why life can be so hard at times? Maybe you feel like you have had more than your fair share of trials and tribulations. Some of you may feel like life just keeps on dealing you a bad hand.
Well today I am here to encourage you. When we go through trials it is for purpose. God uses trials and difficult circumstances to refine us and to grow our faith in His ability to get us through any and everything that life throws our way. He also uses the trials we go through to encourage those who are watching our journey.
Trials are difficult because, we don’t want the pressure and uncertainties that come with them. You may ask what uncertainties? The main one is how long? We don’t want to be uncomfortable or to suffer any longer than we have to. We want to get out of the refiner’s fire as quickly as possible.
God is our personal refiner. A refiner is a person that removes unwanted impurities to improve the quality of that which he is working on, and to make it more suitable for use.
Guess what? When God keeps us in the fire of trials and frustration, He is making us more suitable for His use and for His kingdom purposes.
The good news is that we never enter the fire alone. He goes before us and He is in the fire with us. He is our fourth man in the fire. (Daniel 3:24-26)
We are not consumed by the fiery flames of trials and tribulations. At the perfect time He will remove us from the fire and our likeness will be more like His and at that moment we will look back and see that it will have been worth it all. To be more like God should always be our goal.
