Pray for Fire

When Jesus dictated His letter to the church at Laodicea, He warned them that they had found themselves to be rich and "have need of nothing" -- that they did not know how wretched and miserable they were. "I advise you," He went on to say, "to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich" (Rev 3:17-18). You see, "gold refined by fire" is something special. It is pure. It is valuable. It is top quality.

In Zechariah God says, "I will bring the third part through the fire, refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. 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 my God'" (Zech 13:9) There it is again -- rich metals refined by fire. Malachi 3:2 describes God as "like a refiner's fire." A refiner is the one that uses fire to remove dross -- impurities and alloys -- from precious metals. Solomon wrote, "Take away the dross from the silver, and the smith has material for a vessel; take away the wicked from the presence of the king, and his throne will be established in righteousness" (Prov 25:4-5). So ... dross -- bad ... silver -- good. Pure gold or silver -- best.

Then we read, "For You, O God, have tested us; You have tried us as silver is tried" (Psa 66:10) Okay, we've got this. We can put this together. The psalmist here says that we have been "tried as silver." What do we know, now, about how silver is tried? Well, it is placed in the furnace. The only thing that remains is silver; everything else is removed or burned up. Easy.

Except now we're not talking about rocks; we're talking about us. James says, "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance" (James 1:2-3). "Consider your testing as worthy of joy, brethren." Maybe that makes a little more sense now. The fires that we go through are not mindless, random, without purpose. They are intended to purify, to improve, to make more valuable. They are intended to complete us (James 1:4). And, look, we're in good company there. Hebrews says, "Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered" (Heb 5:8). He learned how to be obedient by suffering? No, of course not. He was always obedient. He learned the full comprehension of obedience through experiencing trials. Jesus Himself was tried through fire, so to speak.

Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. (1 Peter 4:1)

We are really keen on praying for relief. Turns out that in order to be the most valuable, we need the fire. Pray for rain, sure, but it might not be a bad idea to pray for fire, too.