In the Fire

 

Do you ever feel like you are in the middle of something that is creating great stress in your life but you don’t see any way to deal with it, let alone how to get out of it? That is the way I have felt since April 2020. I have felt like I have been in a fire storm. The truth God has showed me is that I am not the first to been in that fire storm.

 

Deuteronomy 4:20

But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of His own inheritance, as you are this day.

 

God tells His people Israel and reminds us, His people the church, that He delivers His people out of furnaces, fire storms. He does it so that we can experience the reality of being His inheritance.

 

We live in a broken world. Nothing in this world works the way God designed it to work because sin has corrupted everything in this world. So, as Jesus says in John 16:33, in this world we will have troubles. But Jesus has overcome the world and will deliver us out of the troubles or out of the furnace.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is knowing we will have troubles in this world but looking to and trusting God for deliverance.

 

God shows us a picture of being delivered from a fiery furnace in Daniel 3.

 

In Daniel 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are commanded to bow and worship before a huge gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

 

In Daniel 3:16-17 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego tell Nebuchadnezzar that they will not bow and worship the image. They say that they believe God will deliver them from being burned to death if they are thrown into the furnace. They then say that even if God does not choose to deliver them, they will not bow down before the image.

 

They are thrown in to the furnace and in Daniel 3:25 Nebuchadnezzar looks into the furnace and sees not three men being burned to death but four men walking around in the furnace unhurt.

 

God literally delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out of a fiery furnace.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is standing firm in our faith in Jesus and experiencing Him delivering us from the power of sin.

 

God promises us that He will go through the fire with us and protect us.

 

Isaiah 43:1-2                                                               

But now thus says the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flames shall not consume you.”

 

God promises that we will walk through the difficulties of life.

 

The difficulties will not:

 Overwhelm us

 Burn us

 Consume us

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing Jesus delivering us from the penalty and power of sin in our everyday life.

 

In 2 Corinthians 1 Paul talks about the hopelessness that he felt. In verse 10 he says, “He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us again.”

 

Jesus will walk through the fiery furnaces of life and deliver us.

 

With Jesus Delivering Us for Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                Joe