Five Minute Friday: "Refine"

Malachi 3:3 - And he 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.

When I first saw the prompt, I had absolutely no inspiration, save the Scripture passage above.

I get that God wants us refined, but what does that really mean?  Whose standard are we to adhere to?  Christ, the head of the Church, has no issue with knowing and presenting the standard.  However, the problem comes when those who are to represent the church change the Lord's definition of "refined."  Instead of letting God's Word and the Holy Spirit truly transform the church from dross to fine gold, human pride and frailty get in the way.  In other words, when the Word of God is ignored and he/she who has the biggest wallet and/or worldly influence decides the next move of the church, we are in deep doo-doo.

Despite popular opinion, this is not a denominational specific problem. I've seen or heard of it in every type of church setting, whether evangelical or liturgical, large or small.  The problem is not the church; the problem is we have lost the spirit of the Refiner and lost His definition of what his family should look like.


Let's fix this, shall we?

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Prompts provided by Mrs. Kate over at Heading Home.