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The Foundation of Your House
"Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you" (1 Peter 4:12).
Fire is a great consumer. It is a purifier. It is also a great revealer. When gold is placed into the fire and it becomes molten, impurities found in the gold rise to top where they are skimmed off leaving behind a pure product. Our faith will undergo this same fiery test, a test which will cause impurities to rise to the top where we can see them. This test of our faith will cause us to see what we are really made of, what kind of person we are, and what kind of Christian we are.
Jesus told a parable of two houses. The houses were identical. They looked the same outside and inside. But there was one crucial difference, one invisible to the eye. One was built upon a rock. The other was built upon sand.
Jesus said (Matthew 7: 24-27) that the person who hears His words and does them is like a man who built his house upon a rock. The wind howled and the rain beat upon the house and the floods came against it, but it did not fall. But the person who hears His words and does NOT do them, is like a man who built his house upon sand. The wind unmercifully beat it down, the floods overtook it, and the rain pounded against it, and the house fell, and great was the fall of it.
These storms of life are like fire. They too are a great revealer. The houses were identical, but the storms revealed the foundation upon which each house was built. It revealed the kind of man which built each house. This fiery trial will come. It has to happen. Peter said, "Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial WHICH IS TO TRY YOU, as though some strange thing happened unto you." (Peter knew this better than anyone).
Perhaps you are going through the fire even now. Your faith is being tested and you are being sifted as wheat. If you are, then rejoice! Peter added, "But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy" (1 Peter 4:13). This trial of your faith, "being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:7).
Jesus is preparing for Himself a church without spot or wrinkle, a church where each person's faith has been tried in the fire. And when He returns, it will result in praise and honor and glory! The NIV phrases these verses, "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith---of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire---may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."
Lord, the trials of life hurt. They are not pleasant. But, they are for a purpose, to refine and purify our faith. Help us to endure knowing that You are doing a work in us and You will be faithful to complete it.
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