“[Trials] have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 1 Peter 1:7
What an interesting and hopeful verse! What trials are you experiencing? You notice I didn’t ask IF you’re experiencing trials. If you’re breathing, you have trials. Of course, we go through seasons when the trials aren’t as difficult as other times, but they’re still there. Our God makes use of everything. Our joys, our concerns, our tears – all are used by Him to shape us and mold us. Too often, I just want the trials to go away. I want the difficulty to end, or to just feel better. In my finite thinking, a good God would smooth my road and make everything easy and comfortable. Aren’t you glad I’m not God? Our God’s love is so great that He wouldn’t do that to us. Instead, He faces our difficulties with us. We know that He’s walking with us every step of the way. Not only that, He’s using those difficulties to a great purpose. If we’re tempted to give up or give in but we don’t, if we say no to temptation and cling to God for all we’re worth, that’s when God takes that faith and uses it for something pretty magnificent.
The apostle compared this experience with gold being refined in fire. When gold is mined it has impurities in it. Because gold can stand more heat than the impurities, it’s put into a hot fire to burn away the parts that aren’t valuable, leaving behind pure gold. That’s what God does for us. He burns away those impurities of our sinful nature, leaving behind the valuable part. And that valuable part is our faith in Him. In fact, it’s more valuable than purified gold. Even purified gold will someday cease to exist. It will come to an end. But our faith – well, that will last for all eternity. In fact, when Christ returns, our faith will be shown for what it is. On that day we will know how genuine our faith is. And it can only be genuine if we have faith in God, not in ourselves.
The end of this verse was a little confusing for me. Who will receive the praise, glory and honor? Will it be Jesus or will it be us? I began to look into that a little until I realized that it doesn’t really matter. If Peter is saying that we will receive those things, we will receive them because of our faith in Jesus. Therefore, we will very willingly give Him all that we are and have. That means that if we have any praise, glory or honor we will lay those at the feet of Jesus. Isn’t this a wonderful quandary?! We can’t attain salvation or sanctification on our own, so Jesus came to live, die, and be resurrected for us. God even gives us the faith to be able to put our trust in Jesus. He helps us to endure trials so that faith can be purified. At the end of time, Jesus will return and at that time our faith, the faith God gave us and purified for us, will result in praise, glory and honor. He has done and is doing all the hard stuff. All we have to do is hold on to Him. So back to those trials you’re experiencing – just hang on to God! I know it can be hard. Sometimes it may seem as if you won’t be able to make it. You don’t know how you can possibly hang on another day. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Just for today, just for this minute, hang on! He will see you through.