All About the Gold, 'Bout the Gold, 'Bout the Gold

Lately, especially after reading William Penn's No Cross, No Crown and studying Deuteronomy, I have been thinking about holiness.  There is holiness imparted to us through the finished work of Christ on the cross, but there is an echo of, "Be holy because I am Holy," throughout every book in the New Testament.  

After initially meeting Jesus and asking Him into our hearts, there should be the desire to walk and talk and live as He did.  In order to do that, we have to be vulnerable and come to God in honesty and ask Him to inhabit every area of our lives.  This isn't a one time event; it is a lifetime event.  If we cooperate with Holy Spirit, God in His mercy will begin to change us on the inside so that we become transparent enough for Jesus to shine through.  That is their goal; this should be our desire.  

Change is never easy, nor is it painless.  This change isn't easy or painless either.

This morning two passages in the Bible really pressed this home to me.

Malachi 3:1-3  Look!  I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.  Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his Temple . . .Who will be able to endure it when he comes?  Who will be able to face him when he appears?  For he will be like a blazing fire that refines metal or like a strong soap that whitens clothes.  He will sit and judge like a refiner of silver, watching closely as the dross is burned away.  He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold or silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord.

Yes, this is the Old Testament, and the prophet Malachi is speaking to an Israel, specifically to Israel's leaders the Levites, who has turned away from God and forgotten His blessings so many times that God finally said, "Enough!" and sent most of them into captivity or to their death.  The Refiner He speaks of is the coming Messiah, Jesus, whom the Jews still rejected.  Messiah would come as a Refiner, one who purifies and eliminates the dross from the precious metal.

Later, the scriptures counsel the church to buy gold tried in the fire.  Revelation 3:18/Revelation 21:18    I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire - pure gold, like unto clear glass.

I did a little reading about gold. 

• Of all metals, gold is the most malleable, Latin for a metal that can easily be hammered out after it has been heated to a certain temperature by fire .
• It is also ductile, Latin for capable of being drawn out into a thin wire, stretched to almost breaking.
• Gold can be beaten into plates of leaves so thin that it takes 300,000 of them placed one on top of another to make one inch. 
• This beaten, hammered gold is so transparent that rays of sunlight can pass right through it like sunlight shines through a windowpane - "like unto clear glass."

First comes the fire; then comes the hammer over and over again until nothing but transparency remains. 

He is the Refiner.  We are the precious gold He has purchased with His blood.  His blood destroyed our sin nature.  Our character is His to form.  He uses fire and a hammer to remove the dross and make us more like Him, more like Pappa.

My prayer is that I will be alert, willing, malleable, and ductile.  He promises that He will be with us every step of the way and that we will survive.

Refiner's fire
My heart's one desire
Is to be holy
Set apart for You, Lord
I choose to be
Holy
Set apart for You, my Master
Ready to do Your will
   ~ Brian Doerksen