Monday, May 25, 2009

"It's too Hot" - The Way of a Prophet Series

“It’s Too Hot”
Way of the Prophet Series

Psalm 12:6
The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times

Proverbs 27:21
As the fining pot for silver, and the furnace for gold; so is a man to his praise

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

Ya’ll stick with me…I promise this will make since at the end. Gotta get it out the way God gave it to me.

I can still remember when we started paying for water in a bottle, or when ya’ll did. I kept saying, for a long time, how crazy is it to pay for water that I can get for free. What made it worse, was the fact that I never really liked the taste of water. I am the kind of person that if it has flavor….like a soda…I can drink it. But if it is not supposed to have flavor, and I can taste the impurities in the water….ain’t gonna drink it.

Tap water comes from the city. They pull it out of the closest river, and add things to it, and TRY to take out some of the bad stuff. It gets the water where it is “safe” but most everybody can still taste some bad stuff in it, but we grin and bear it. It won’t hurt you…keeps you hydrated…good for the most part.

Fast forward….I finally tried bottled water. I tried “mineral” water, like Deer Park. It was actually pretty good. Better than tap water, but I could still taste some impurities. “Mineral” water is taken from mountain streams. The water is “purified” because it runs over rocks and gets captured before it sits in say a lake where it would collect the bad stuff.

Thank God for the smart person that started LeBleu! They said, let’s boil the water. They actually get it hot enough that it becomes steam…kinda like going into the spirit…then the bad stuff just falls out. Needless to say…I love distilled water.
Pottery starts off being dirt and water….my God….I am just thinking that we are dirt and water. God told Jeremiah to get up and go down to the potter’s house…I believe so that Jeremiah could understand the WAY OF A PROPHET. As the potter formed his creation, he say something wrong. Fortunately, the clay was not hard yet….why?....because a potter keeps adding water to the work….keeping it soft enough to be molded.

The company I work for makes aluminum foil. To understand the use of a furnace when working with metals, you need some more information. First, in order to separate the bad from metals (like the silver refered to in Word) you have to get it hot enough to work with. The furnaces at work are over 1400 degrees F. Once you get it hot, you can add a certain gas to it, and all the bad floats up to the surface.
Before you can move forward in what God has for you to do, He is purging you of things that will hinder your walk. He had to send Moses out into the desert…the Israelites into the wilderness…poor Joseph had to go in a pit and in jail…you into your “issue”. How do you know about any of this Ben? Because God has placed me in the fire. But, it’s too hot, God!

Pray this prayer with me…Creator/Potter, I thank you for creating me. I understand that I am fearfully and wonderfully made…that you took a lot of time and effort to make me who I am. Now, through my “fire” and this confirmation from Ben, it all makes since. Now instead of complaining for my “issues”, I will sing like Hezekiah Walker….I’m grateful for this stuff flowing from my heart. It hurts, I do not understand it all, but I trust you when you tell me it is for my good. God, forgive me for not listening until you allowed this to happen. Now, God, this is a new day. I forget those things I have hung on to, that you have purged. I let go. I let go. I press forward…not in my own strength, but in the strength YOU placed within me. It is not about me, but about the work…the souls…you have assigned to my charge. Satan shoulda killed me when I was in the pit….but he messed up and let me up!

It is so.

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