Feeling the Heat of Adversity? That May Be a Great Sign

The opening illustration of today's installment from Our Daily Bread may be trite, but the entire piece makes an important point.

God is in the business of strengthening and purifying the characters of those who believe in Him. I love the last line: "The only way God hurries holiness is by turning up the heat."

If you're a believer in Christ feeling the heat these days, lean on God a little harder; He's up to something in your life!

Read the whole thing.

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It's based on Isaiah 43:1-13, written about 500 years before Jesus' birth to God's chosen people:

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. ²When 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 flame shall not consume you. ³For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. ⁴Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. ⁵Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; ⁶I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth— ⁷everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears! ⁹Let all the nations gather together, and let the peoples assemble. Who among them declared this, and foretold to us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to justify them, and let them hear and say, “It is true.” ¹⁰You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. ¹¹I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior. ¹²I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses, says the Lord. ¹³I am God, and also henceforth I am He; there is no one who can deliver from my hand; I work and who can hinder it?

Keep trusting in the God Who has definitively disclosed Himself in Jesus Christ; you and your character, the most important thing about you, will always be the better for such trust!