Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the Lord tests the heart.

Prov. 17:3  Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the LORD tests the heart.

If you want pure gold and silver they must survive the test of fire.  Fire gets rid of all the impurities that may be found there.  The end result of going through the fire is a product that is beautiful, pure and of great worth.

It is the same with the soul.  In order for the soul to be something of beauty and useful to God, it must first be tested and refined by God.  The goal of God as He works in us is to make us pure.  He never stops working on us because He knows that we will never be 100% pure this side of heaven.  He created us with a will and He knows that we don’t always choose to cooperate with Him.  We stuggle and sometimes fight the process.  We don’t like the process of going through the fire; it makes us uncomfortable and sometimes hurts a lot.  We try to avoid the heat as much as possible.  And the more we struggle against God, the more we find ourselves in need of God’s testing and refining.

Left alone we will never become pure in heart; we will avoid the refining fire.  We will never be found to be pleasing and acceptable to God.  We must let the Lord work in us.  Knowing that He loves us and sees the beautiful person we can become, it is in our best interest to submit to Him and let Him have His way with us. 

“Thank you, O Lord, for not giving up on us.  We thank You for seeing in us something beautiful to reclaim.  We thank You for your refining fire.  We thank You that we are becoming pure in heart.  Lord, we confess those times in which we struggle against you.  We know we don’t always let You have your way with us and thus delay the process of our becoming pure.  We ask You to forgive us.  Lord, we must have your help in this.  We ask You to strengthen our resolve to not sin against you.  We ask that You do whatever you need to do in us to make us pure and keep us that way.  Lord, test our hearts today.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.”