Dear friend,
If someone show you a piece of ore and tell you that there is gold in it, how would you ascertain what he said? Well, purify it by fire and see what remains. Metals, as we know, melt and evaporate at different temperatures and gold at a very high temperature. So, before gold starts to melt and later evaporate, many other metals and "impurities" would have been separated from it. So what remains, as the temperature goes up is the purer gold.
Something else may look like gold, but upon testing by fire, they may reveals themselves as something else. There may be other cheaper and less certain way of testing gold. It may be a waste of time and money to test everything found with the "test by fire". But if one is certain of the presence of gold, it may be good to test it by fire and get the gold in as pure a form as possible. "He knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold" (Job 23:10).
To belong to the Lord is to be a genuine piece of gold. He calls us His - that is how we become His. That is how we become a piece of gold - by His calling us into such a being. So He knows us as such, as those who "nameth the name of Christ".
As a genuine piece of gold, it does not mean that we exist in all its purity. In fact, we are still in the stage of being a piece of gold ore, still containing many impurities as well. Thus the God of our salvation "shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness". He makes us "kings and priests" by purifying us.
After the process of purifying, the Triune God shall say, "It is my people: and they shall say, the Lord is my God." What an owning of each other!!! What a manifestation of the children of God at the end of time!!! Our present sufferings are indeed not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed.
May God help us to see whenever we are tried. Amen.
Do read the Holy Scriptures for yourselves in the free Daily Light on Daily Path for this day at '''''''.
lck
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