Day 2: The Furnace of Affliction

"Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." Isaiah 48:10

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Every person reading this goes through trials. Perhaps it's the reason you started this devotional. Notice how this is phrased here, "I have refined thee,". Refined means to take out impure or unwanted elements from a substance. God says He has removed the impurities from your life that would get in the way of being fully pure.

Have you ever had a surgery? My wife had sever gallstones, and she would often be doubled over in pain, crying and praying that the pain would go away. When we asked the doctors at a hospital in California what to do, they simply told her to lose weight. They didn't check her or make sure everything was fine. They said she had gallstones and she needs to exercise more. I'm not much of a surgeon, but that just doesn't sound right to me, and if you were to see the kind of pain she was in, you would hope there would be more of a cure to this than simply working out. After moving to Texas, she experienced a severe attack once again leading us to a different doctor. This doctor had a different idea however, telling us to get the gallbladder removed. Thankfully we did, and my wife has not experienced an attack like that since.

We can add work on work to our belief, and we can try our hardest to work our impurities out of us, but God doesn't want you in that way. If we are busy trying to work out our own impurities, why would God provide us salvation through Christ? Even more so, when we are busy working out our own impurities, it leaves no room for God to work through us. Allow God to do the refining. He is the master surgeon who is the only one capable of removing the gallstones of sin.