Yesterday I made it to my weekly women's book study called Koinonia where we are studying through the Beth Moore study on Daniel. It was a miracle that I even made it because I was up til 3 am that morning working on a 'project'! I am one of those people who when I start a project I have to finish it 99% of the time before I stop, and this wasn't even a fun project! We still get the paper version of our monthly bank statements and so I try to keep up on making sure our account is balanced each month with that and that all our $ is accounted for, call me old fashioned but that is what I do. Well last month I had started it, which is normally about a 2 hour job and didn't finish and then we just got the one for this month so I sat down to finish the old one and do the new one to catch up, which was not till like after 9 pm Wednesday night to begin with! Crazy, I know.
Anyway I was so thankful that I made it to the study despite my lack of sleep and lack of coffee before I left! I don't know if you have ever done a Beth Moore study but this is my first and let me tell you she is an amazing speaker/teacher. This particular study of hers is dvd session driven, so you watch & listen to her teach then go home and do your lesson and come back the next week to discuss your lesson together and then watch the next session with her. She was teaching on the section that all of us know if we know anything about the book of Daniel, where Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego are thrown into the fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar because they would not bow down and worship the gold statue that he made of himself for everyone to worship! They believed and knew that 1) it is wrong to worship anyone or anything aside from God and 2) that God would deliver them in the fire for taking their stand for Him even if it meant deliverance directly into His arms as their bodies burned in the furnace.
She camped out on 3 different scenarios we face as people of God when we go through fiery trials and I just loved all of them but especially the last one. 1) God can choose to deliver us from the fire where our faith is built in that scenario. 2) God can choose to deliver us through the fire where our faith is refined. 3) or God can choose that we be delivered by the fire into His arms where our faith is perfected. And as she talked about this last one which would be death, sometimes we are not healed through our sicknesses like cancer and what not the way we think we should be healed, she gave this picture of it that just made my eyes water because it was a new way to look at facing death. As all of us will someday die, we are doomed by it, and I don't think I've ever wanted to avoid death or been super afraid of it since I am assured of my destination but it was just a fresh way to look at it. She said passing into death is just like shedding a coat and you keep walking. I got this picture of a person walking and as their physical body passes away they just take off this coat as they walk, like it falls to the ground but the person just keeps walking and there is just this bright light in front of them that they are headed towards because heaven is ahead and the Word says that no sun is even needed in heaven because the glory of the Son fills all heaven with light (see Revelation 21:23)! Like I said as she described facing death in this way I just got teary eyed because it makes sense and sounds inviting to me when described that way. Our spirits don't die, just our physical bodies, just our tents that our spirit lives in, and we get new bodies when we reach our destination, ones that are perfect and that I will never feel frumpy in again because my body could use a good working out right now! I've known this but just putting it into that picture, I don't know, just made it desirable for the first time in my Christian walk.
I just wanted to share that beautiful picture with you today. And for those of you who don't know how that story ends of those 3 brave, courageous souls, they were delivered through the fire with Christ (or some believe to be an Angel) standing with and protecting them in the furnace, they came out not even smelling like smoke! (Read Daniel 3 for full story!)
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