THE FIRE OF DELAYED ANSWERS – are you waiting for you prayers to be answered? – Refiners fire by BOB SORGE Part 1 of 13 Part One – The Furnace of Affliction , Chapter 1 – Refiners fire Equipping Series Sunday, October 27th 2024 Blog link – https://www.otakada.org/the-fire-of-delayed-answers-are-you-waiting-for-you-prayers-to-be-answered-refiners-fire-by-bob-sorge-part-1-of-13/ Podcast link – https://open.spotify.com/show/4dM07mIhic99gToH8I6iv1 YouTube link – https://youtu.be/GSmyb3T6ggo?si=pcJIZYOCdI9kd5P2 Tiktok link – https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMh9MMFBB/ Intercessory Group link – join us online on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 29th to 31st Oct. 2024 as we intercede in fasting and prayer for North and South America; Asia and Middle East using Matthew 6:10 https://www.facebook.com/share/p/p3QDSQyaxN4YLFjS/ Discipleship group link in Individualized Discipleship with Jesus: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567162063032&mibextid=ZbWKwL Full book link: https://shop.otakada.org/product/the-fire-of-delayed-answers-are-you-waiting-for-you-prayers-to-be-answered-refiners-fire-in-pdf-by-bob-sorge/ Title: Chapter 1 – Refiners Fire Introduction I’m glad you’re picking this book up because its message is straight from my heart. This book is intensely personal. It is the product of a very impassioned search into the heart and ways of God. A season of physical pain and disability has caused me to press into God with all my heart and soul, and the truths herein are a reflection of that search. God will always remain beyond our complete comprehension, but He has invited us to explore and uncover His ways — the ways in which He has chosen to relate to man. God’s ways are always self-consistent, but they are beyond our ability to analyze definitively. God will not be put in a box. But He does want us to grow in our knowledge of Him. As I have pressed into a fuller understanding of God’s ways, there is one aspect of God’s ways that has captured my attention, and it is the central theme of this book. Let me condense it into what might be considered a “thesis statement” or “summary statement” for all that fol- lows: Sometimes God delays the answers to our prayers in order to produce a greater maturity and fruitfulness in us. The word “sometimes” is an important qualifier in that statement because God doesn’t always delay His answers. Many times He sends immediate relief. But I am observing that many saints in this present hour are facing great challenges because their prayers appear to be unanswered, and they don’t understand God’s purposes in the season of delay. They look at the unchanged circumstances, decide that God must be saying “no” to their prayers, and as a consequence make some very unfortunate decisions. Dear reader, let me implore you: If you are ever to mature into greater dimensions of fruitfulness in the kingdom of God, then you must commit yourself to understanding how God uses delay to refine His chosen ones. The refining process is never comfortable. God’s fire is always hot. David Ruis has written a great song that says, “There’s a fire burnin’, falling from the sky, awesome tongues of fire consuming you and I… Oh, sweet fire, come and burn over me.” It’s a beautiful thing when we invoke this refining fire in our lives, but it’s also a very serious thing. If you’re willing to embrace His fire, then prepare yourself for some pain. Christ calls us to the cross because we’ll never become like Him apart from pain. God’s first priority in our lives is to make us fruitful — it is not first and foremost to make us comfortable. God doesn’t enjoy leading us through painful circumstances, and He really does love to bless us. But what they say in athletics is also true spiritually: “No pain, no gain.” The chronicles of the Israeli nation testify that in times of comparative comfort and blessing, the hearts of the people of Israel wandered into idolatry. Distress was necessary to turn their hearts back to God. In a similar way, we don’t typically choose the strenuous path of maturity apart from the incentive of pain. Oh yes, we sincerely long to mature in Christ. But when times are smooth, our pursuit of God loses its edge of diligence, and often we’re not even aware that it’s happening. In His infinite grace, God personalizes some troubles with our name on them, in order to help us toward His design for our lives. The Bible is chock full of passages in which God has promised to answer our prayers. I emphatically maintain that God desires to answer our prayers that are in accordance with His will. When we claim a Bible promise that is quickened to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we are praying according to His will. And He will answer us. It’s just that He sometimes delays the answer for very purposeful reasons. The focus of this book is to explore the reasons why He sometimes delays His answers. Maybe you think it’s carnal to ask why. But many of the Psalms ask the why question with no apparent reproof from the Lord. When God begins to reveal His purposes to our searching hearts, and we begin to understand His ways, it helps to keep us from crawling off the altar. We find grace to persevere in tribulation because we understand that the present pain will produce a future harvest (see Hebrews 12:10). I don’t expect this book to be “fun reading.” But I do trust that it will be comforting, particularly to those who are experiencing the fire of heretofore unanswered prayers. What is the nature of your own ongoing trial? Financial pressure? A difficult relationship? Physical affliction or infirmity? Sickness or disease? Family turmoil? Unexpressed ministry giftings? Unattained goals? Grief over the death of a loved one? Emotional upheaval? Unfulfilled desires? Great personal loss? The list goes on, but if you find yourself in the category of waiting on God for unanswered prayers, then I trust that you will gain fresh fuel for the journey as you join me in exploring the ways of God. Bob Sorge April, 1996 Part One – The Furnace of Affliction Chapter 1 – REFINER’S FIRE “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Deuteronomy
