Buy Your Gold NOW!

I came across this book several years ago (The Fire of Delayed Answers; are you waiting for your prayers to be answered? By Bob Sorge) when I was going through a rough season. A season that was not seeing breakthrough, my mom was not being healed, and my husband leaving me. I found myself pondering where was God in the midst of my pain, my struggle, and my confusion.   I had confessed everything that I could think of, and also told every little demon to go- yet something lingered and it was crushing. I never thought that maybe  it was GOD trying to create within me integrity, He was creating strength, and creating endurance, He was creating a greater longing for HIM, He was creating a greater love. Most of us like our comfort and like things easy we forget that GOD loves the process. 

I am finding out that Christianity is not about my comfort at all- but something totally different. It is about taking up the cross and following Jesus. It is saying yes to dying to self and then saying I voluntarily go down the narrow road- that is difficult. I choose long-suffering, daily dying and Christ JOY!  I understand and am grateful that I have been bought with a price I am not my own. Beloved, do not despise the process, do not despise the fire and do not despise the North winds that blow (Song of Solomon 4:16)- for He is creating something more beautiful within you than you will every know or understand. In our cultural here in America we have such an entitlement issue. Let me be clear on this point the only entitlement that is truly ours is death- for that is the wages of our sins. The joy is that Christ took that death upon Himself, on the Cross that we might be hidden in Him and have everlasting life!

He is coming back- and He is coming for a pure and spotless Bride (church). It is time to allow Him to do what needs to be done within you so that you might partnership with Him now and in the age to come.

Change of season

Are you ready to buy Gold?

(Revelation 3:18-19)- We need not fear or dread the calamity; if it comes; it is customized in advance by our loving heavenly Father just for us. When the time of testing comes, and the fire is turned up in your life, you have a choice; (“Forget it, I can’t deal with this”) or you can go for the gold (I’m going to press into the Lord now more than ever”).

Are you ready to deal with or embrace a God that ‘tests’ you- to drive you deeper into Love, deeper into HIM?  A fire goes before Him (Ps. 97:3). When Jesus visits us, His face is always preceded by His fire. He knows we won’t be prepared for His face until we’ve been purified by His fire. So if you’re feeling the fire of God in your life, cheer up; it means that God is coming to you! This is the fire that precedes Him. He is drawing you closer to Himself, and His glory is starting to consume you! The fire is His assurance that you are being drawn into a place of greater intimacy and knowledge of God!

Buying Gold

There are two ways we receive from God. Some things are given to us, and some things are bought!  Jesus talks about this in Revelation 3:18, when He says “I counsel you to buy form Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich.” First of all what is this gold that is refined in the fire? The answer is two-fold:

1.       The gold is purified faith. “that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7). When we survive the fire, we come out on the other side with a much stronger faith.

2.       This gold is refined character. “But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.” (Job 23:10). In a word, this gold is Christ likeness. When fiery trails have effectively made us more like Jesus, then we have indeed gained true riches. 

Notice that this gold is bought, we do not earn or deserve it, but we do pay a price for it. What is the price we pay to buy such valuable spiritual treasure? It is purchased at the cost of great personal gain. This gold is bought in the fire and is attained only as we persevere and endure through the fiery trails that God sends us. God purpose in allowing difficulties, persecutions, and hardships to come our way it that we might take advantage of the opportunity and buy gold. When the crisis explodes, God wants us to fix our focus on Him, find Him in the adversity, and discover the Spirit’s pathway to renewed victory.

In the same way, when you buy gold in the fire of personal pain and calamity, it’s extremely precious in your eyes. That deepened character came to you at a great price. You won’t neglect it, you won’t forget it, you won’t trade it, and you won’t give it away. When you buy gold in the fire, it’s yours!

Yes God, delivers us from all affliction, but sometimes He DELAYS His provision in order to try us by fire. The delay itself is a fire ordained by God to produce a deep work in our hearts. God has a design for our deliverance, but He also has a purpose for the fire delay. Make no mistake, delayed answers are a fire. When you’re in a crisis and have His promise of deliverance, but there’s no change in sight, the heat can become very hot indeed! His purpose in the delay is to strengthen our faith, kindle our love to new depths of passion and maturity, and impart the heart and character of Christ to us- all in order to make us a more useful vessel.

Jesus said, “everyone will be seasoned (literally, salted) with fire.” In other words, the fire of God is going to touch every human being. The only question concerning being salted with fire seems to be when- when will be seasoned with fire? Either we will know God’s purifying fire in this life, or we will suffer the eternal flame of His holy wrath. I hear Jesus saying, “Unless this holy fire burns within you now, bringing you to true purity and peace, then you will have no escape from the fire of Gehenna which consumes forever.”

God will turn up the heat on His last days’ church, because if He doesn’t His saints will succumb to apathy, greed, luke-warmness, materialism, and self indulgence. Be ready for it in this hour dear saint, God is going to send or permit calamity to come against His children, and He’s going to delay the answers to our cries for relief in order that He might perfect us into the image of Christ. (Revelation 3:14-22)- There is a fire going forth before Him, and it is preparing us for His long-awaited return.

Those who have only read but have not lived the book of Job cannot imagine the stress on a struggling human heart which, held powerless by His power, is still required to trust the love it cannot see and to pray for the friends who have not been friends at all. 

Above portions  taken from The Fire of Delayed Answers; are you waiting for your prayers to be answered? By Bob Sorge.