Brian Doerksen- Refiner's Fire

(Recommended by Mrs. Stapleton) Not many people don't like gold or silver. That's just a fact. But how many people would love that silver necklace if it was unpurified silver rather than the precious, refined silver that actually sells in the store? How much difference is there really? Maybe it's a little more than you might have thought...

It takes a lot of hard work and time in the furnace for silver to be ready to buy. It takes fire over 1200 degrees Celsius (2200 degrees Fahrenheit) to dredge the impurities out of the unrefined silver ore. And it's not just a 'one and done' process. The silver needs to go through the fire several times before all of the imperfections are cleansed. But it's definitely worth the time and effort it takes, because the difference is so visible.

It's the same thing with our lives. God takes our sinful, black lives and puts them through the refiner's fires in order to bring our faults and blemishes to the surface so they can be removed once acted upon. It may take many trials through the fire before we're 'perfected'. In fact, we will never reach that mark this side of eternity. But it's our goal to move closer to Jesus every day, so we need to keep up through the fiery trials.

Silver and gold are precious and very valuable. But Peter says (1 Peter 1:7), "...the trial of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes..." Think of how great lengths we will sometimes go to get the pleasures of life. If our faith is more precious than even those, how far should we be willing to go?