June 1, 2008
Heat
I Peter 1:7

These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Heat, what does it do to you? Our pastor showed the congregation an object lesson a couple of Sundays ago and being a visual learner it stuck in my mind. He sat on the platform with a small table, an instrument that you use to work with jewelry, a blow torch and gas tank. The videographer moved in closely to get the view for the big screen. Our pastor explained that he had a small bag of jewelry pieces…part of a gold bracelet, back of an earring, a broken gold chain, a mangled earring….really nothing of value. The instrument that he was holding was called a crucible which is a ceramic type, small bowl at the end of a wand. The pieces of jewelry were placed into the crucible and heated with the blow torch until it began to melt so it can be used to make a beautiful piece of jewelry. The interesting part was the jewelry pieces were dirty and when melted the dirt was floating in the gold. He sprinkled some salt onto the melted gold and it cleaned the gold, but where did the dirt go? Here’s the good part…it stayed in the crucible (the ceramic bowl) which was black. Our Savior went to the cross, died for you and me, took our sins or our dirt with him, kept the dirt, and gave us the choice of eternal life (a beautiful gold piece). We are the pieces of jewelry….not very valuable until Jesus comes into our life and makes us clean again and useful and beautiful. When we are faced with the pressures of life and our feet are to the fire, remember the gold being melted for a better use. We grow the most when we have to depend on God totally! The result is amazing!! Give God the glory for all things in your life!