Purified

Read: Malachi 3:1-4

He will be like a blazing fire that refines metal, or like a strong soap that bleaches clothes. Malachi 3:2

IN WORD

A refiner’s fire burns out impurities and makes a metal pure. A launderer’s soap washes out dirt and stains, and bleaches garments white. And when Jesus comes, He will have those effects on the human race.

Jesus has already cleaned and purified, of course. He did that in many ways in His first coming by forgiving sins, cleansing leprosy, healing infirmities, offending the prideful, and, ultimately, by shedding His blood on a heavenly altar and opening the way for us to enter the Holy of Holies. As He taught, as He healed, and as He died, He had the effects of a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap on us. And as we follow Him in discipleship, He still does.

Even so, the Second Coming will be different. The separation of tares from wheat, of dross from silver, and of stains from white garments will not be a process but a sudden event. Jesus will dramatically separate sheep from goats, or the saved from the unsaved. Though He has been refining and cleaning our hearts for the last two thousand years, He will refine and clean the earth in a moment. And blessed are those whose lives are ready for the division.

IN DEED

Is your life ready for the division? When Jesus comes, will His refining and cleaning be a statement of the obvious in your life? Or is your life the sort that is an inextricable blending of the holy and profane, of the pure and the impure? In other words, are you trying to follow Him and other loyalties at the same time? Are you double-minded?

Whatever it takes, be purified. Be refined. Let all dross be burned out, all stains removed. Your salvation was a one-time cleansing, but your experience of His presence in your life is not. And if sin has made you unfamiliar with that presence, His coming will be a severe shock indeed. Let the Refiner and Launderer have His way with you—in every area of your life.

ADDITIONAL READING: 2 Peter 1:8-11

God desires the smallest degree of purity of conscience in you more than all the works you can perform.

JOHN OF THE CROSS