The Refiner's Hand

Here is a blogpost from a friend...as I prepare my heart and home for Passover, it has special meaning for me.  I want to be refined so that others can see my Master's image in me as well.  Got a ways to go...lol 

Malachi 3

¹BEHOLD,
I send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me. And the
Lord [the Messiah], Whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; the
Messenger or Angel of the covenant, Whom you desire, behold, He shall
come, says the Lord of hosts. ²But
who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He
appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap;

³He
will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and He will purify the
priests, the sons of Levi, and refine them like gold and silver, that
they may offer to the Lord offerings in righteousness.




A story goes like this:

Several
years ago, a group of women studying the book of Malachi and pondered
these verses. Curious as to how the process of smelting silver applies
to God’s treatment of His People, one woman went to observe a
silversmith at work.

As
the silversmith held a piece of silver over the fire, he explained that
he needed to hold the silver where the flame was hottest in order to
burn away all the impurities. The woman, remembering the Biblical verse,
asked if he had to sit there the whole time the silver was being
refined. The silversmith responded that not only did he have to sit and
hold the silver the entire time, but he had to keep a careful eye on it,
because if the silver was left in the flame a moment too long, it would
be destroyed.

“How do you know when the silver is fully refined?” the woman asked.

“That’s easy," he replied. "When I see my image in it.”

⁴Then will the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in ancient years.



blessings,



Gail