Silver And Gold

As I read Proverbs Chapter 17 during my devotional time, God drew my attention to verse 3 which says, “The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, But the LORD tests hearts.”

One of the many problems with what we call the church today, is that most of us never make it through the refiner’s pot.  Many never even make it to the pot itself.  Our Americanized version of Christianity implies that our relationship with Jesus should be at our convenience, completely unburdened by any personal sacrifice on our part because we are saved by grace, no strings attached.  But that is not what Jesus taught.  Jesus said that being His disciple would come at great personal cost to us.  That we must be willing to forsake all to follow Him:  our family, our children, our plans, our culture, and even ourselves, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26).  He said the crucifixion of our self would be required to follow Him and be His disciple, “And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:27).

You see, when Jesus spoke to first century hearers of “carrying your cross”, what they heard was “you must carry an instrument of your own death….daily.”  This would not have been an attractive component of what Jesus' teachings were calling them to do.  What Jesus was basically telling them was, “Follow Me to your own death, and I will give you new life, but that new life will cost you everything.”  At Luke Chapter 14, verse 28, Jesus tells His followers that they must count the cost to follow Him, then at verse 33 He tells them what that cost will be, “In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.” (Luke 14:33).  Notice that Jesus is not saying here that we must simply be willing to give up everything to follow Him.  He is saying that those who do not give up everything they have, cannot be His disciples.  Jesus calls His followers to a radical devotion that has been largely lost within what we call the church today.

For the most part, what I see in the church today, is a congregation of people who want to follow a Jesus that doesn’t require anything from them.  They want to follow a Jesus that would never place them in a refiner’s pot, much less, ever lead them into the furnace.  I see people comfortable in their commercialized version of Christianity, worshiping the Jesus that they are being taught about by other people, rather than the Jesus they are personally pursuing themselves through prayer and careful study of scripture.  For the most part, those within the church today are following someone else’s version of Jesus rather than the real Jesus of the Bible Who says things like, “He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, and every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes to make it even more fruitful.” (John 15:2).

I guess the question we must ask ourselves is, are we silver or are we gold?  Or are we just a branch that should be cut off because we are bearing no fruit for God with our life?  Are we a branch that is even willing to be pruned by the refining pot, so that the salvation we have received by His grace will be a fruitful branch for His kingdom?  The refining pot will come at a great personal cost, it will be painful, you will grieve the loss of many things that you never realized you were holding onto.  One of the hardest things God ever asked me to do was to let go of what I aspired to do for His kingdom and submit to what He aspired for me to do.  How many of us are truly willing to let go of everything, no matter how much we have reasoned in our heart to continue to hold on?  How many of us have convinced ourselves that we are approaching the cross with empty hands, as we ought, only to look down and see them holding on to something we are trying to bring with us? 

As I meditated on the refiner’s pot versus the furnace, I realized how few people actually give themselves wholly over to Christ.  The refiner’s pot serves to prune a person, but the furnace utterly destroys them.  Pruned silver versus pure, untarnished gold.  The furnace leaves nothing of the old person remaining, everything is lost in the furnace, burned away into oblivion, leaving only a purified soul, flawless, whole and complete.  Our great aversion to the refiner’s pot should serve as an acute reminder of how desperately far away each of us are to the spiritual wholeness that comes by the furnace.  The refiner’s pot should remind us that no matter how righteous we think we are, there is always more work to be done in us.  As Christians, we should never be comfortable where we are at in our spiritual growth, but rather, we should long for the refinement that brings us to the spiritual wholeness that is promised by our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

The more you truly, personally know Christ, the more you will long for the refinement that comes at great personal cost.  The more you truly, personally know Christ, the more you eagerly anticipate, “the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” (2 Tim 4:8).  

“If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, the work of each will be evident, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will prove the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive a reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss. He himself will be saved, but only as one being snatched from the fire.” (1 Cor 3:12-15)

“These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold--though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.” (1 Peter 1:7)

“But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.” (Job 23:10)

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to take the prize. Everyone who competes in the games trains with strict discipline. They do it for a crown that is perishable, but we do it for a crown that is imperishable.” (1 Cor 9:24,25)

Harbinger Emotions

Sometimes God puts challenging people in our lives to remind us that, without Him, we are broken too.  Lest we get too puffed up in our spiritual growth, sometimes God will place people in our lives to serve as a reminder to us of everything we have been forgiven. 

In 2 Corinthians, Chapter 12, Paul spoke of a, "thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me." (v. 7).  We are never told what Paul's thorn was and although many speculations abound, it could have been anything from a particular emotion he may have struggled with, or a particular person, or both, or neither.  However, in my own personal experience, it is my emotions and the people that incite those emotions in me, which seem to be my thorn of torment, reminding me of my own weakness toward sin.

It is no casual confession for me to say that many times, the people that seem to torment me the most, are those who have the very same flaws that I have overcome or may continue to struggle with myself.  To which God must continually remind me, I would never have overcome those flaws if not for His grace and His grace alone, which is the very same thing He reminded Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” (v. 8).

For example, when I feel like someone is manipulating another person for their personal gain, I feel contempt.  I feel great contempt against manipulation because God has placed in my heart a raging desire for truth.  Thus, in my quest for truth, my contempt against all things non-truth is a thorn in my side because it is an emotion that can easily and seamlessly turn into resentment, bitterness, rage, criticism, condemnation and grudge-bearing, all of which are sinful.  Contempt, which is disapproval tinged with disgust, is not necessarily a sinful emotion in and of itself.  It is quite likely Jesus felt contempt when He overturned the money changer's tables in the temple (Matt 21:11-13).  However, my personal temptation towards contempt is a messenger of Satan in my flesh, reminding me of my own personal proclivity towards sinful emotions. 

Jesus had full mastery over His emotions and although He may have been superficially tempted by sinful emotions, He never, ever indulged in them because He was utterly sinless and always in control of His thoughts, emotions and behavior.  I, however, am not, therefore, for me personally, contempt is a harbinger of other emotions crouching at my door (Gen 4:7).  It is a thorn that pierces my flesh to remind me that I am vulnerable to temptation, which makes me vulnerable to sin.

Why make such candid, intimate confessions and expose myself?  Because when we expose our flaws, we give the enemy nothing to work with.  When we acknowledge and confess our sins and areas of weakness, we shine the light of truth upon any potential foothold for the enemy in our life and rob him of the opportunity to do his work in secret.  I feel very strongly that this was one of the many reasons that Paul himself was so candid in his confessions about his own shortcomings.  He was simply exposing any potential within himself towards sin, and in so doing, fully submitting himself to God to work in those areas in his life.

We all have thorns in our flesh.  For some of us, those thorns may be harbinger emotions that easily and quickly lead us to sinful emotions crouching at our door.  For example, admiration can be a harbinger of lust, immoral arousal, covetousness, envy, dissatisfaction or ingratitude, all of which are sinful emotions.  Confidence can be a harbinger of pride, insensitivity or narcissism.  Harbinger emotions are thorns in our flesh, messengers of Satan to remind us of our own sinfulness, our own weaknesses, and our desperate need for Jesus every moment of every day.  They are thorns of temptation which serve to sharpen us, refine our flesh, and drive us into the arms of our loving Father Who is mighty to save and always eager to pour out His endless grace upon us.

"So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Cor 12:7-10)

Our Form Of Godliness

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. (Psalm 91:1)

As I meditated on this scripture this morning, God impressed upon my spirit that rather than dwelling in the shelter of the Most High God, Who so many of us claim to worship and follow, we are, instead, dwelling in the shadow of the world.

Jesus reiterates in the New Testament, that to truly be His disciple, we must abide in Him:  “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch is not able to bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither you, unless you abide in Me… If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.” (John 15:4-10).

Far too many of those who claim to belong to Christ, are living spiritually fruitless lives because they are not dwelling in the shelter of the Most High by reading, studying and living according to His word, fellowshipping with other mature Christians, nor spending significant, heartfelt time in prayer seeking His presence and will for their lives.  But rather, our thoughts, desires, likes and dislikes are all shaped by the world.  Instead of being products of the life-changing, transforming power of the Holy Spirit, we are products of our culture.  A genuine relationship with Christ is supposed to free us from all that.  When Jesus said, “Follow Me”, He was calling us to an act of surrender that would lead to our freedom.  But truly, “All of us, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.” (Isaiah 53:6).

The foundation of the Gospel is repentance that leads to salvation.  Jesus’ first recorded words in the Gospel of Mark, when He begins His earthly ministry, are:  "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." (Mark 1:15).  Jesus preached the Gospel by saying, “Repent.”  To repent means to turn away from one thing and turn towards another.  And Jesus said to be His disciple, we would have to do it every day, for the rest of our lives (Luke 9:23,24).  Despite all our efforts to repackage the Gospel, to make it “culturally relevant”, or more appealing and “seeker sensitive”, the foundational message remains the same.  We have confused “relatability” with “appeal”.  Jesus never sought to make the Gospel appealing, but He did seek to make it relatable.  People are affected by the Gospel of repentance and Lordship salvation because they can relate to it, not because it appeals to them. 

On the contrary, the Gospel, in and of Itself, is wholly UN-appealing to sinful men.  The Gospel accuses us of treason against God and convicts us of our guilt as sinners condemned to hell.  The Gospel forces us to look at our desperate, lost condition, magnifying the warts of our flaws and weaknesses.  It is an eternal reality-check that reminds us that we are but clay vessels, broken and shattered, useless and dead in our sins.  Yet at the same time, it gives us the single, solitary answer to our wretched condition:  Jesus Christ.  The hopelessness of our condition is remedied through our surrender to follow Christ, Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6); The Light of the World to those who live in darkness (John 12:46); The Gate for the lost sheep (John 10:7-9); The Fountain of Living Water to those thirsty for truth (John 4:10; 7:38); and The Bread of Life for those hungry for righteousness (John 6:35,48,51).

However, the transformation to newness of life offered by Christ can only come when we truly follow Him.  And to truly follow Him, we must repent and turn away from the brokenness and sinfulness of our world and culture.  We must die to our self so that Christ can live in us to do His work through us.  Salvation in Christ is the free gift of grace offered to all mankind, through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord of our life (Eph 2:8).  Which begs the question we must all ask ourselves:  Is my faith in Christ simply an intellectual awareness of Him, or have I truly let go and surrendered to Him as Lord?  Is my faith based on an ideal?  A denomination?  A concept?  Or do I truly know Christ as a person?  Can I recognize His voice over my own?  Do I have intimate knowledge of His commands and teachings?  Do I long to apply His words of truth to my life?

The Apostle Paul warns young Timothy of the characteristics of many of those who will call themselves Christians in the last days.  Among those characteristics, he says that they will be “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power. Have nothing to do with such people.” (2 Tim 3:4,5).  Of this verse, Arno Froese asks, “What power are they denying?”  To which he answers, “The power of turning a sinner into a saint; the power of turning a saint into a sacrifice; the power of the Gospel to take away my rights, my self-assertion, and replace it with total servitude to the Lord.  That is the power of the Gospel being diminished and denied today.”