When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the furnace in Daniel 3, Nebuchadnezzar asked, “Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?….But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.”
That “fourth” man was the pre-incarnate Christ.
Jesus doesn’t wait for us on the other side of our pain. God (Immanuel) is with us in our “furnace.”
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