Zechariah 13:9 - I
will bring the third that remain through the fire and make them pure, as gold
and silver are refined and purified by fire. They will call upon my name and I
will hear them; I will say, ‘These are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord
is our God.’”
Throughout many of the Bible prophecies ….a remnant of
faithful followers is mentioned. Zachariah reminds us of them in this
chapter. God promises over and over to
bring these faithful followers through whatever fire they may face in their
lives. He promised that the fires we are
asked to walk through will even make us stronger….better….purified.
God likens the process of purification first to a river…that
will wash and cleanse us from our sin. Then
he compared the continued building of character and faith to the process of how
fine silver and gold are refined. Raw
metal has a lot of impurities in it. They are embedded deep within the metal….not
always on the surface. To remove what is
not wanted it must be heated to a high degree and melted. The impurities are
skimmed off the top and the pure gold and silver are allowed to cooled into a
new shape.
That is exactly what God does with each of us that accept
him into our hearts. He places us in his
river of cleansing when we first ask him to live in our hearts…then he continues
to refine us by allowing different things
in life to act as a fire…constantly burning the unwanted things out of our
lives. We can choose to let those things
burn completely out of our lives and be part of that remnant of strong faithful
followers.…or try to hang on to them and risk becoming one of the 2/3 that don’t
make it into the kingdom.
Father…thank you for reminding me that you will hold my hand
through any fire that I am asked to walk through. Forgive me for the times that I let the fires
weaken me….letting satan trick me into trying to hang on to things that you are
trying to remove from my life. Let your fires purify me so that I can be used
to share your love with others. Amen.
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