God Is Strengthening Your Faith in the Fire | Mornings with Mico

Good people, what's going on, man? Welcome to my one-on-one time with God. Yesterday I shared with you that this week we're gonna be walking through, just kind of like unpacking some of Brian's sermon from this past Sunday. So yeah, but no further ado, we're gonna dive right in. Brian spoke on sifting and he used the passage in Luke 22 when Jesus tells Peter that Satan wants to sift you as wheat and he just shared what that season looked like for him, what it has looked like for him. And what I wanna do here is we're talking today, we're still talking from that passage, but I also wanna highlight another passage here. It's in Peter, 1st Peter, chapter one. Should've already been in, huh? Chapter one, verse six and seven. You probably beat me to it. Let's see, here we go. Chapter one, verse six and seven. Where Peter says, in all this, you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even through refined by fire may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. And I think that this is just one of those passages

like you take into consideration, like this is a passage that he wrote after he had gone through his trial, like his sifting where he denied Jesus three times. And I think it kind of gives him a bit of like moral authority as he's sharing what faith being tested and what that's produced. I think he understood testing differently after walking through that failure. The same man who once broke down in fear, in the face of the people who were accusing him of knowing Jesus, which he did, as he broke down in fear of that, this is the same man who's now writing about a refined faith. It matters because Peter isn't speaking theoretically. He's speaking from experience. When you go back to Luke 22, Jesus reveals something very profound when he says that Satan has asked to sift you. I think from what we can take from this, and we see this in other passages, but in here as well, that the enemy wasn't operating independently. He had to ask permission for, you know, in order to sift, you know, Peter, in order to, you know, whatever he wanted to do, he had to operate within a confinement of these limitations. I think that this passage gives us a glimpse behind the curtain into the spiritual realm of actually what's going on.

Peter, he only saw the pressure beginning to build around him. But behind the scenes, there was like, there was a spiritual agenda going on. And that matters because sometimes we can all, you know, as we experience the manifestation of sifting, the pressure, the confusion, the temptation, the exhaustion, the fear, we often aren't aware of the spiritual battle that's surrounding our lives and all of this. We're unaware of the prayer that's covering us, right? Jesus was praying for Peter in this situation, right? We were unaware of the limits that God has placed on what the enemy can even do. We'll be, you know, experiencing, you know, seasons of despair and we're like, we don't know how this is going to end or how far is this going to go. Not, not, just unaware that like, like he has some limitations. The enemy has some limitations in as far as what he's even permitted to do. We're unaware that God may actually be producing something deeper through this process. I think sometimes I can say for myself, my pivot has, like I have a quicker pivot in shifting to like that posture of like, okay, God, I'm experiencing, you know, some heaviness or, you know, burdens or pressure, but Lord, what are you doing in this? And I think that's just genuinely come, you know,

not tootin' my own horn, but it's from going through so many seasons where relief or resolution wasn't, you know, my portion in that season, but rather, you know, I was called to endure certain seasons and then looking back on it and seeing what God has produced. in me and seeing how much of that makes up the man that I am today. I think that that's kind of helped me to have a quicker pivot to like seeking God's perspective in a matter when I'm dealing with something or even if I'm, you know, mentoring someone and they're going through something, I'm looking at it through the lens of like, okay, God, this sucks right now, but what are you doing in this? I think that it's important to note here, right, that as Jesus shares with Peter that Satan has asked to sift him, his response, you know, was I'm praying for you. Like that was his follow up of all the resources just available to Jesus, right? All the authority, all the power, the weapon he chooses to activate in this time is prayer. Prayer for Peter. I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail. Jesus didn't pray Peter could avoid the battle or that the enemy will relent or that it would be a less burdensome battle or, you know, it would just, it would, it would be, you know, an easier, an easier burden. He prayed that his faith would survive it because this was a battle for Peter's faith to step up to. This wasn't, there wasn't anything else, right, that was required, you know, in this moment. It was, it was like, no, this is a battle for your faith to step up to. For me, it reminds me, it reminds me of, of like being, being younger and, and, and, you know, having like an older brother or something like that. And, and you're getting ready to fight somebody or somebody, or, you know, or somebody's picking on you and your brother sizes them up and like, nah, get in there. You got it.

You know what I mean? And it's cause it's like on one end, like in, in, in that, in that regard, like, yes, there is a call for you to step up to some of these battles, to step up to some of this sifting, but also fully aware that in this case, it's not solely dependent on you, right? It's not the victory isn't yours. It's not solely dependent on you. This is, this is right now, this wasn't, um, as Peter was, you know, um, called to this sifting as, as you know, God, Jesus allowed, you know, the sifting, um, Peter wasn't called to rely on his own strength. Jesus wasn't praying that, you know, you'd be man enough to make it through this. Like, no, he was, he was, he was praying for his faith. It wasn't, this battle wasn't for Peter to be destroyed. It was for Peter's faith is so that Peter's faith will become stronger, deeper, and he will be less dependent on himself. Actually. Sometimes we can ask God, like, you know, why didn't you stop this? Why didn't you prevent this? Why didn't you, why would you allow this? Heaven's answer to that is, is I'm sustaining you through it. I'm strengthening her through it. I'm forming something in you in this process. Gold is refined through fire and spiritually trials often expose what needs still needs to, um, surrendered in us, right? Um, but that it's trust that humility, um, for us to grow deeper in our dependence of God, the enemy wanted to use this sifting as destruction. But God was actually producing some formation in this and it just gives, it gives us insight into God's perspective of maybe some of our lower seasons in life. Maybe some of our ambiguous seasons in life, maybe some of our, you know, most strenuous seasons in life to recognize that in the midst of it, right? Like there are limitations to what we will endure because God sets those limitations

that Jesus here praying on our behalf and for our faith to sustain, for our faith to be strengthened and God producing something in us throughout the process. So much for myself, it's, it's really like in my walk, it's like, Lord, help me to just see this from your perspective. And then my fight becomes, help me to get on board with what you call good in this. Cause for me, what, what, what looks like good might be relief hitting the EJ buddy, getting, getting, getting, you know, um, a blessing, whatever the case may be getting more abundance over here, whatever, whatever, whatever my, my issue is, you know, whatever, whatever, you know, that, that, that trial looks like. That's what good looks like to me, but me getting on board with God, but what do you call good in this? Because what you may call good in this is it may not agree with what I call good in this. And I need to step into agreement with what you call good in this. And in order to do that, Lord, in order to do that, Lord, give me your perspective. What you may call good in this is look at the surrender. That's being produced in you. Look at the trust that's being produced in you. Look at the humility that's being produced in you, right? Look at the, the, the self-reliance that you're dying to look at how deep your roots are growing in your dependency on me. That may be what God is calling, you know, um, calling out if you want to producing you in these seasons. So just, one just kind of wanted to just add perspective to whatever season you may be going through. Maybe it's something you're going through now, maybe it's something you've gone through in the past, or maybe it's something that someone else around you is going through, and just add perspective, you know, for us to shift and to see this the way that God

may be seeing this. Want to leave you with something, just something to reflect on as, you know, you spend your one-on-one time with God today, and it's simply just, how might God be strengthening your faith through your current season, or through a past season, or through the season, or through a season that maybe a friend is going through? How might God be strengthening your faith in that? For us to just step into agreement with what God is wanting to do in this season. I'm gonna pray for us. Lord, we thank you. We thank you that you are all-knowing, that you are all-powerful. We thank you, Lord, that you are omnipresent, that we have unlimited access to you at any given moment, Lord. We ask that you, Lord, over our perspective, Lord, that you continue to strengthen our faith through these trials, and if this is by your design, if this is, you know, by your design to grow us, to strengthen and grow our faith in these seasons of trials, Lord, we just, we ask that you do a thing in our heart to help us to step into agreement with what you call good in every season that we endure, Lord. Not that we just endure it, Lord, but that we actually embrace what it is

that you're doing in it, Father, that we can partner with you in every season that we go through in life, Lord, and that we can grow in trust, and we can grow in humility, and we can grow in our just dependency on you, Father. So we thank you and pray all this in your son Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Amen.