By the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

Every time of shaking in a sieve, or sifting, comes by God’s divine command and permission. For example, Satan had to seek permission before laying even a finger on Job. Yet in a greater sense our siftings as believers are the direct work of heaven, for this verse says, “I will shake the house of Israel.” Satan may hold the sieve, hoping to destroy the grain, but he is simply a servant to the overruling hand of the Master, and instead of destroying the grain, he actually becomes part of the process accomplishing its purification.

Dear precious — although much sifted — grain on the Lord’s sifting floor, be comforted by the blessed fact that the Lord Himself directs both the threshing tool and the sieve for His own glory and to your eternal benefit. The Lord Jesus will surely employ “His winnowing fork . . . in his hand” (Matt. 3:12), using it to divide His beloved from the vile. All the people of Israel are not true Israel, just as all the grain on the threshing floor is not pure grain; thus, His winnowing process must be performed. And the weight, or significance, of the grain is important, for the husks and chaff that are devoid of substance will be blown away by the wind, with only solid grain remaining.

Yet notice the complete safety of the Lord’s wheat, for even the smallest grain of true wheat has been given the promise of preservation. Although God Himself does the sifting, and the work is often difficult and seemingly harsh and done in every area — “among all the nations” ​— He sifts us in the most effective way possible. In spite of His grain being “shaken in a sieve,” not the smallest, lightest, or most withered of us will be permitted to fall or “reach the ground.”

Every individual believer is “precious in the sight of the Lord” (Ps. 116:15). As a shepherd would not lose one sheep, a jeweler one diamond, a mother one child, or a man one limb of his body, neither will the Lord lose one of His redeemed people. However insignificant we may feel, if we are the Lord’s, we can rejoice that we are protected and preserved in Christ Jesus.

By the pen of Jim Reimann:

Consistent with the truth that Satan must seek permission to sift us, Jesus told Simon Peter, “Satan has asked to sift you as wheat” (Luke 22:31). What a comfort to know that nothing can enter our lives except through the sovereign will of God!

Another comforting thought is what Jesus went on to say: “But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail” (v. 32). Imagine,
Jesus had already prayed for Peter — even before his sifting had begun!

Finally, we learn the comforting truth that Jesus used the sifting not only in Peter’s life but also in the lives of others, for Jesus also says, “When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” (v. 32).

Dear believer, God’s purposes are established through your sifting. And, remember, “He is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them” (Heb. 7:25). Learn to thank Him not only for His intercession but also for the sifting itself.