#refiner's fire

New update on our situation:

My family and I are still in Florida. I have a full time job (I've had it since October), and it's really not a bad gig at all, except that it just doesn't pay enough.

Money is tight. God has kept us going, and I have no doubt He will continue to do so. But this has been such a difficult time, and there's no end in sight. On top of that, I've had old work friends from New Hampshire reach out to me with very high paying job offers. The temptation to go back is extreme. I've been struggling to get into various new fields, getting paid bottom dollar, being low-man on the totem pole for the last almost four years (I can't believe we've been here that long), and the opportunity to go back to a career field where I'm skilled and experienced, where I'm being very well paid, and where there's a high level of job satisfaction, it's almost irresistible.

God called us here to Florida. We can't go back. The Lord's way is always the best way. The Lord gave back to Job twice what he lost. We gave up a beautiful house and a fantastic job to come here. I have to believe that God will give us more than we gave up once our time in the wilderness is over.

Please keep us in prayer. Pray that the Lord will give us grace to resist the temptation to run away, and whatever else we need to learn our lessons quickly so we can finally stop wandering through this desert. God is good!

This has been in my inventory for a few weeks-let me know if it needs a trigger warning

People say to me all over the country, "I am interested in revival." I say, "Yes, so are a million other Americans." I find all kinds of people interested in it. I don't find many people burdened for it. People are very interested in revival, but we don't start to break the fallow ground. We don't prepare the way of the Lord.

I remember as a little boy I used to go to bed at night with a candle... you never had that joy, did you? I remember thinking how many other candles you could bring and light off that candle? I wonder and I wonder. I never found an answer, but I often used to wonder.

It was Charles Wesley who wrote the hymn, "See how great a flame aspires, kindled by a spark of grace. Jesus' love the nations fires, sets the kingdoms all ablaze. To bring fire on earth He came, kindled in some hearts it is, Oh that all might catch the blaze, all partake the glorious bliss."

Jesus said, "To bring fire on earth have I come." Did you hear anybody preach on that text? What kind of fire? Well, surely not hell fire. Holy Ghost fire! The most devastating fire of all is not the fire that consumes a building. It isn't even the fire of hell. The greatest, most devastating fire, is the fire of God. We say, "God is love, God is love, God is love..." And yet our God is a consuming fire. "Who shall abide the day of His coming," Malachi says. "He is like a refiner's fire." Mathew 3:16, "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and Fire." But you see, that aspect is not stressed in the day in which we live.

I’m back. 

Morning Devotional for January 21

Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it.

He is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.

We glory in tribulations: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. — If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons, for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees.