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Today's Devotional

The fire will test what sort of work each one has done—1 Corinthians 3:13 (ESV).

We are told that “gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity” and the experience of every child of God abundantly confirms this truth. There must be times of trial; times of probation, to show “what sort of work” we have been about, in that which we call our religion. For, we must ever remember, that it is one thing to have a religion, and another to have a work that will stand the fire.

Unquestionably, the passing through a furnace must be agonizing to the transitory life of nature; but to the life which is supernatural, to the holy birth which is of the Spirit, it is the way, and the only way, to freedom and peace. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Liberty from the galling slavery of the will; from the restless, disorderly workings of the passions; liberty to attend to, and to enjoy the passing moment, without fruitless reminiscences of the past, or anxious desires for the future; and if it be suffering that the present moment calls us to, there is the disengaged mind which is best fitted to endure it with simplicity and faith.

About the author and the source

That every saint’s work must be tested by fire is a fitting thought for today—All Saints’ Day. Although Mary Ann Kelty (1789–1873) was a native of England, it was in the United States that her Christian works first succeeded. She was influenced by Charles Simeon (an evangelical priest of the Church of England) and by the Quakers.