In the Fire

Strange voices surround you, telling you, “You’re never coming out of this. You will always be broke. You will always be alone. No one will ever love you genuinely. You won’t ever be a homeowner. You won’t ever come out of debt.  You’re not effective.” And it seems as if the more you push in the Truth, the heavier you become. You even go through seasons of lack, failure, making mistakes, and dealing with insecurities.

The goal of the enemy is to get us to turn our backs on God. He wants us to take on the mentality that we would be better off without Him, when actually, we would pay a great price being without Him. The enemy is capitalizing off of delays, rejections, and our fears. Much demonic assault and harassment has taken place because the enemy wants to tire us out to get us not to believe.
 
In the Bible
Do you remember the story in the Bible of the three Hebrew boys? In Daniel 3, King Nebuchadnezzar made a gold image. He had a meeting with all leaders to see this image, and told them that when they and all the people hear a sound played by instruments, they were to bow down and worship it. And there was also a consequence that if they do not bow down and worship the image they will be cast into a fiery furnace. So, the time came when the people heard the sound. Everyone bowed down and worshipped the image except for Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego.

King Nebuchadnezzar was very upset that they disobeyed his command. He had the three of them brought to him, and he gave them another chance to obey. They then said in verses 17-18, “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, o king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou has set up.”

Did you hear their position and stance? They basically told the king, “even if God doesn’t deliver us, we still believe He is more powerful than you.” And if you read the rest of the story, they were actually thrown into the furnace, and to King Nebuchadnezzar’s satisfaction, the furnace was turned up seven times hotter. But also to his dismay, he saw four men instead of the three he had thrown in.
 
Present Truth
What’s the point of this story? Many times, we take on the stance that if we pray, God will help us avoid every storm, and that’s simply not true. As believers, we will have to go through some things, so it’s unfair to think that because we are Christians, we won’t ever have to endure anything. But just like in this story, God didn’t necessarily remove them from getting thrown into the fire; He was just present in the fire with them.


Recap
Do you have the attitude like the three Hebrew boys that even if God doesn’t do it, you will still serve Him rather than other gods? Can you resolve in your heart that there will be some storms you will have to go through? And even when you go through, God is in the storm with you! And just like the Hebrew boys, they didn’t smell like smoke. Neither will you smell like what you endured.