Devotional 20 August 2025

August 20, 2025 • Steve Torres

1 Peter 1:8-9.jpg

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:6–9, ESV)

Peter reminds us that our trials are not random but purposeful: they prove that our faith is genuine. Gold is tested by fire because it is valuable. No one refines wood in a furnace. Yet even gold perishes, while faith refined through suffering endures forever. This is because faith, unlike gold, is not mere material substance but love in action: our obedience to Christ in trust.

Jesus Himself taught this to Peter. When the risen Lord asked, “Do you love me?” Peter replied that Jesus already knew his heart (John 21:15–17). But Christ did not settle for an inner affection, He commanded Peter to “feed my sheep.” Then He foretold that Peter’s obedience in love would one day lead to his death in service to the Master (John 21:18–19). Love for Jesus is proven not by feelings but by faith that obeys even when it costs us everything (John 14:15).

So it is with us. Every day reality itself asks, “What are you?” And every day our actions, in obedience to Jesus, answer, “I am a child of God.” Faith tested by trials proves who we are. As Paul says, “The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Our identity is revealed in obedience born of love.

This obedience is not joyless drudgery. Peter says we rejoice “with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8). This joy is the same joy that led Jesus to the cross, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). It is the joy of sons and daughters found worthy to share in Christ’s sufferings (Acts 5:41; Romans 8:17).

Faith refined in the furnace of trials becomes radiant, pointing forward to the day of Christ’s revelation. And when He is revealed, our proven faith will result in “praise and glory and honor” (1 Peter 1:7). What gold cannot achieve, God accomplishes in us: a tested faith that secures “the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:9). So rejoice, even in grief. The fire is not there to destroy you but to prove that you are His.