Deeper Waters: A 5-Day Devotional by Jeremy CampSample

Day 5: No Survivors

“I have refined you, but not as silver is refined. Rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering.” Isaiah 48:10 (NLT)

I hate to tell you this, but going deeper in your faith is going to require pain. And honestly, I’ve found the reality to be the greater the pain, the deeper the faith. I don’t love those odds. It doesn’t feel good. But I know a stronger relationship with Jesus doesn’t come easy.

Oftentimes, God has to burn away things in our lives that aren’t good for us. That’s the only way He can shape us into the people He created us to be.

I wrote a song about this for my new album. It’s called “No Survivors.” The lyric says, “If I’m gonna live, then there’s some things that need to die. My ego, my pride, my grip on my life. Throw it all into the fire and leave no survivors.”

Sometimes, God’s refining fire feels really hot because His aim isn’t just to make us better “Christians.” His goal is to make us more like Him.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV) says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

I can’t be the man I want to be without Jesus. I can’t be the husband and father I want to be without Him. I can’t be the artist I want to be without Him. So that’s why the fire’s so necessary.

When God turns up the heat, that’s when He rids me of all the things that stand in the way of me fulfilling His purposes for my life. Pride, selfishness, envy, bitterness, greed — it all melts away when we allow our Creator to refine us. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t string. Refinement is never pleasant, but the result is the kind of character and integrity that can’t be achieved any other way.

At the end of the day, my prayer is that God will burn away anything that doesn’t reflect His goodness, His peace, His joy, and His heart.

Trust me, the gold you discover on the other side of the fire is worth the temporary discomfort. These days, I’m learning to thank God for the flames because I know they mean a deeper faith is being forged.