Refined - Finding Joy in the Midst of the FireSample

It is utterly and critically necessary that you know who God is, because man fell when he lost his right concept of God. If you do not embrace a correct definition of who God is, you may fall into depression, bitterness, and sin following the devastation of a trial. You may fall into losing hope, losing direction, and perhaps even losing faith if you don’t know Him in all of His fullness and goodness. The next time you find yourself in the direct path of a searing fire of life, you need to recognize who God is and glorify Him as such! If you refuse to recognize the character and goodness of God when the temperature of life is uncomfortably high, you are going to find yourself in a most dangerous spot in life. In these verses from the Book of Romans, mankind became confused about what God was actually like. Humanity refused to honor God, refused to worship Him, and began to think that God was something that He was not. Although mankind falsely believed they were “know-it-alls,” they were actually fools when they exchanged the glory of God and imagined that God was like them. These foolish specimens of humanity thought that God was no different from birds or cows or reptiles. These men and women, to whom the first chapter of Romans is referring, exchanged the truth of God for a lie. Mankind simply became confused about what God was like in truth. They did not know the character of God when it mattered the very most. The fire will destroy your life and who God meant for you to be if you are unable or even refuse to focus on who God is. Knowing God, declaring God, and worshiping God while in the furnace of great affliction is what will transform your life into a trophy of pure gold living. If, the next time you find yourself saying, “Why God?! Why do I have to go through this?!” your second thought is about the goodness of God and you begin to worship Him in spite of the extreme heat of the fire, it may become your very finest hour. “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”—A. W. Tozer