Burn it off.

There is nothing like a good fire to warm the achy and cold bones. God gave us Jesus, our place of forever warmth and home. 

John chapter 15 verse 4.

Jesus said, "Take care to live in Me, and let me live in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit when severed from the vine. Nor can you be fruitful apart from me."

Job was an average man who lived a good life and loved God. When Job's life became a mess, filled with heartache and death, he fell to the ground and prayed saying, "I came naked from my mother's womb, and I shall have nothing when I die. The Lord gave me everything I had, and they were His to take away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

   Our lives may or may not be as troubled as Job's was, but we are the ones who have to live the lives we are given, so what ever it is that fills your thoughts and consumes your time, identifies us. Are you good at concealing your true feelings? 

   In Job chapter 26, he talks about God saying, "The dead stand naked, trembling before God in the place where they go. God stretches out heaven over empty space, and hangs the earth upon nothing. He wraps the rain in His thick clouds and the clouds are not split by the weight. He shrouds His throne with His clouds. He sets a boundary for the oceans, yes, and a boundary for the day and for the night. The pillars of heaven tremble at His rebuke. And by His power the seas grow calm; He is skilled at crushing it's pride! The heavens are made beautiful by His Spirit; He pierces the swiftly gliding serpent. These are some minor things He does, merely a whisper of His power. Who then can withstand His thunder?" 

   So Job worshiped God because he trusted Him over his own thoughts. We are to be strong in our faith in order to let God take care of us. 

   Isaiah chapter 61 verse 3 says, "To all who mourn He will give: Beauty for ashes; Joy instead of mourning; Praise instead of heaviness. For God has planted them like strong and graceful oaks for His own glory."

   You won't believe the joy of trust when it happens to you. There will be doubt and a little confusion as to why this is happening to you. For you are someone who does not deserve to be pampered with His grace, but it is happening and you cannot help yourself from giving praise to God for Jesus. 

   In Malachi chapter 3, the prophet talks about the coming of Jesus and how He will burn off our old ways to make clear the new found love we have for Him. He compares it to refining silver as the old outer layer is burned off leaving only the purest of precious metal. Verse 10 says, "Bring all your tithes into the storehouse so that there will be food enough in My Temple; if you do, I will open up the windows of heaven for you and pour out a blessing so great you won't have room enough to take it in! Try it! Let Me prove it to you!"  

   We are God's temple and it is by our tithes of praise and actions of love for Him that He will overflow us with blessings. The world as you knew it is nothing compared with the gift of Jesus, given for us to live with forever. 

   Do you remember the struggle you had when you first came to Christ? The indecisions, the bad nightmares, and the healing power that took place. Your old you was burned off and in the end you were left standing with Jesus. He has brought you into His pastures, where you recognize His voice and are filled with the joy of His Holy Spirit. 

   In John chapter 10 Jesus says, "Yes, I am the Gate. Those who come in by way of the Gate will be saved and will go in and out and find green pastures." 

   This is God's world and we get to live in it with Jesus. He is the Gate and by our choices we either are focused on Him or we are not. 

   He continues in verse 27 saying, "My sheep recognize My voice, and I know them and they follow Me." 

   The joy we are experiencing is forever and we know it because it's a place where we wish we had come so many years earlier. Our lives won't be perfect but they will have purpose and that is to hold tightly to that place we have come to. 

   Jesus says in John chapter 8 "I am the Light of the world. So if you follow Me, you won't be stumbling through the darkness, for living light will flood your path."

   You may not want to believe in Jesus. Maybe you think it is all a bunch of malarkey, and believing in Jesus is setting yourself up for rejection and failure. You are the one who makes the choice. And you are also the one who will know that you did not come to Jesus on your own but were guided to Him by His grace and mercies.     

   In John chapter 6, Jesus replied to the people, "I am the Bread of Life. No one coming to Me will ever be hungry again. Those believing in Me will never thirst. But the trouble is, as I have told you before, you haven't believed even though you have seen Me. But some will come to Me---those the Father has given Me---and I will never, never reject them."

   There will be a time of suffering as you let go of your old ways and begin to walk with Jesus. But as the 23rd Psalm says, "Yea though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me."

   Jesus will be with you forever and you will be so filled with love for Him. Burn off the old and step into the new. 

   Thank You Father for Jesus. Thank You for the refiners fire. The place that continually burns off our troubles and woes. leaving us to see clearly the Light of Jesus. 😊 

   

Matthew chapter 7 verse 20. 

The way to identify a tree or a person is by the kind of fruit produced.

Matthew chapter 12 verses 36 and 37.

Jesus said to them, "And I tell you this, that you must give account on Judgement Day for every idle word you speak. Your words now reflect your fate then: either you will be justified by them or you will be condemned." 

Zechariah chapter 13 verse 9.

I will bring the those that remain through the fire and make them pure, as gold and silver are refined and purified by fire. They will call upon My name and I will hear them; I will say, "These are My people," and they will say, "The Lord is our God." 

1 John chapter 1 verses 5-7.

This is the message God has given us to pass on to you: that God is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all. So if we say we are His friends, but go on living in spiritual darkness and sin, we are lying. But if we are living in the light of God's presence, just as Christ does, then we have wonderful fellowship and joy with each other, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin.