Message summary: May the Lord prepare our hearts today to experience these types of trials. Based on observation and discerning the times they are already here for some.

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At a company where we served as chaplains for many years we visited with Russ on a weekly basis. He worked with a furnace used to treat metals that heats up to 1550 degrees. It’s a very hot room even in winter but in summer it’s...really, really, really hot. We never stayed in that room long!

Russ is shown wearing his ice pack vest which he testifies really helps make his work more bearable and less of a fiery trial! Contrast that setting with Turkey Hill Dairy where we also served as chaplains and visited with workers in a deep freezer who wore heavy coats with hoods and quilted insulation that kept them from suffering from freezer burn.

But today let us consider another type of fiery trial, the kind that scores of our brethren are now enduring all over the world. A news report stated, “Attacks on Christians and other minorities in the Muslim-majority world are increasing and an already terrible situation is worsening. Kenya, Pakistan, Egypt – it is now open season on Christians. The attackers very specifically targeted non-Muslims and they identified them by asking their captives either to name Muhammad’s mother or to recite the shehada, the Muslim profession of faith.”

One of the most fulfilling aspects of our online ministry is sharing encouragement with our brothers and sisters in “closed countries”, where traditional means of ministry are prohibited or severely restricted. A reader from one of the most oppressive regimes in the world wrote us, “The enemy is working double time in this place. Every now and then they’re conducting raids on houses and camps even at dawn. Our underground church was ransacked and they’re taking everything. But this doesn’t move us to surrender. Again we regroup into small groups and the good thing is we become so close to each other.”

Look at the second daily text again. “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.”

Most who live in areas of peace and affluence consider a fiery trial to be a health issue, financial difficulty, family conflict, job loss, etc. However most of the time these matters are not directly a result of following Christ. We certainly believe these issues can be fiery and very difficult. The principle of the daily text can be applied to these types of trials.

However reading on through the context of 1 Peter 4 it’s clear that Peter is speaking here of persecution and suffering that is a direct result of following Christ, something scores of our brethren all around the world know very well.

A Biblical outlook is that these fiery trials should not surprise us. Jesus warned us of them, the early disciples experienced them, and the apostolic writers, like Peter candidly wrote about them. May the Lord prepare our hearts today to experience these types of trials. Based on observation, examples like the baseball payers, and discerning the times they are already here for some.

But we especially want to encourage our brothers and sisters today in places where there is oppression, suffering, and lack of religious freedom. Being mindful of their suffering we want to pray for them faithfully, support ministries that are able to interact with family members of those being held captive and help to provide for their needs. We also know that many of you reading this message will pause and consider your blessings even as you pray for our persecuted brethren.

Be encouraged today, Hebrews 3:13.

Stephen & Brooksyne Weber