The Fiery Trial is God's Rescue

Hey Church Family:  If you stopped eating food today do you know how long you would live before dying of starvation?  We usually get a reminder every 3-4 hours that our bodies cannot survive very long without food.  Usually our bodies can only live 30-40 days without consuming food.  Our physical bodies must have physical sustenance to survive.  What about spiritual starvation?  Have you ever spiritually starved yourself?  Have you ever considered how long you can survive if you spiritually starve yourself?  Thankfully, our loving Heavenly Father is a God of mercy, grace, steadfast love and faithfulness so that He sustains us even when we are not consuming spiritual nutrition.  God sustains us, He is the upholder of our lives even when we do not seek Him for spiritual sustenance.  But our Lord does not want us to spiritually starve ourselves.  He does not want us to be spiritually malnourished.  The Lord wants us to enjoy the abundant life that comes from Him sustaining us richly and we cannot presumptuously rest on yesterday’s grace.  So, what does God do?  He puts us in fiery trials to bring us back to Him to once again get spiritual nourishment by calling out to Him.

God loves us with such great love that He will put us in fiery trials to refine us and test us so that we will pursue spiritual nourishment.  He will lovingly take us into fiery trials so that we return to Him and call on His name (Zechariah 13:9).  The fiery trial is God’s rescue for us from spiritual starvation.  The fiery trial is God’s mercy and grace for us to come back to Him to call upon Him and He answer us.  2020 has been a year of fiery trials for all of us.  Are you responding to His call, with crying out to Him calling upon His name?  When we call upon His name through these fiery trials He says, “you are My child.”  Church, enjoy all of the benefits and all the kindnesses of your Heavenly Father as He calls us back through these fiery trials.

 Zechariah 13:8-9 And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ”
 
This Sunday we will be meeting in person at the church building if you would like to join us in person at 10am.  And for those who will be staying at home, we will  be live-streaming on our Grace Community Church Topsail YouTube Channel. Push the blue link.  We can also be found at https://www.gracetopsail.com/

I look forward to worshipping with you Sunday, forgiven. - Steve