Isaiah 48

God often uses the hardest things in life to produce the best things in us.

We love comfort. If we were in charge, we would make sure that our lives were easy and predictable. We don’t want to be sick. We don’t want our lives to be unsettled by less-than-perfect people. We want to be financially secure. We want clean houses and dependable cars. We want plenty of food in the refrigerator and lots of money in the bank. We want comfortable jobs and memorable vacations. We want control over our lives. We want our opinions affirmed and our viewpoints respected. We want a good night’s sleep, and we want to feel refreshed in the morning. We don’t want to get old. We don’t want to feel afraid or anxious.

It is not sinful to want these things, but if our desire for comfort rises in importance in our hearts and becomes the thing we live for, then we will find ourselves at cross-purposes with our Lord. God often compromises our comfort in order to produce something even better in us: godly character. God exercises his power over us with redeeming zeal. His plan is not just to forgive us, but also to refine us by his grace. We have been made positionally righteous by the work of Christ, but we are not yet purely righteous in terms of the character of our hearts. So, with refining grace, God works to make us what he has declared us to be in Christ. We need sanctifying grace far more than we need comfortable lives.

It’s important to know that the theology of God’s refining and transforming grace is not just a New Testament theology. This has always been God’s plan for his people. We see this clearly in Isaiah 48:9–11:

For my name’s sake I defer my anger,
     for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you,
     that I may not cut you off.
Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; 
     I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.
For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, 
     for how should my name be profaned? 
     My glory I will not give to another.

God sees our weakness, immaturity, and failure, but he withholds his anger so that his refining grace has more time to work. How does he refine us? He uses the furnace of affliction to make us stronger vessels so that our souls will shine for his glory. Why does he do this? He refines us so that our lives will not profane his name, but rather give him the glory he is due. He refines us so that the only explanation for the way we live is that we have been touched by the power of his refining grace. May we love refining grace more than we love our comfort. And may he grant us the grace to live not for our own glory but for his.
Paul David Tripp is a pastor, an award-winning author, and an international conference speaker. He has written numerous books, including Lead; Parenting; and the bestselling devotional New Morning Mercies.