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Garth Heckman

The David Alliance

TDAgiantSlayer@Gmail.com 

Dropping the weights on my foot

1 Peter 1: In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

Suffer grief GK LOO-PAY-OH  = self inflicted grief… your own mistakes.

Trials GK PI-ROS-MOS  Temptations and testing

Verse 2

7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine

**LITERALLY MEANS the handler of your faith is genuine! GODS CHARACTER WILL BE PROVEN AS HE WALKS YOU THROUGH YOUR MISTAKES AND HANG UPS AND POOR CHOICES. 

When a blacksmith heats a piece of metal…

When a blacksmith heats and rapidly cools (quenches) metal, they are performing heat treatment, a process that dramatically changes the metal's properties by altering its internal crystal structure to increase its hardness, strength, and wear resistance. Heating the metal allows its atoms to rearrange, and rapid cooling locks them into a distorted, more rigid structure, making the metal harder and more difficult to deform. 

Here's a breakdown of what happens:

• Heating: The metal is heated to a high temperature, causing its atoms to become more mobile. This makes the metal softer, more ductile (able to be stretched), and allows for its structure to change to a different phase, such as austenite in steel. 
• Rapid Cooling (Quenching): The hot metal is then quickly cooled, often in water, oil, or brine. This rapid cooling prevents the atoms from fully reforming into their softer, original state and instead traps them in a strained, highly ordered crystalline structure called martensite in the case of steel. 
• Increased Hardness and Strength: The trapped carbon atoms and internal strains within the martensitic structure create a very hard and strong material that resists deformation. 
• Potential for Brittleness: The rapid cooling can also introduce internal tensions and make the metal more brittle, a state that can be refined by subsequent processes like tempering. 
• Tempering (Optional): To reduce brittleness and create a balance of hardness and toughness, a blacksmith may then reheat the metal to a lower temperature and cool it more slowly in a process called tempering. This results in a tool that is both hard and less likely to snap under stress.

Great question. Growth in Christ is not a straight upward line but more like a lifelong journey of transformation—sometimes marked by leaps forward, sometimes by setbacks, but always under God’s grace. The Bible describes this process as **sanctification**—being made more like Jesus through the Spirit’s work. Here’s how that process unfolds, including the reality of ongoing failure: