Purified

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

Proverbs 17:3

What a crucible does for silver and a furnace does for gold, God does for the heart. The refining process for these precious metals requires intense heat. When the temperature is hot enough, the pure metal and the impurities separate. The pure metal settles to the bottom, and the impurities rise to the top, where they can be skimmed off. Heat brings impurities to the surface so they can be removed.

God chooses the picture of silver and gold to describe a purified heart.

Silver and gold are malleable metals. They can easily be molded into new shapes. A pure heart is soft, moldable, and pliable in the hands of the Master Artist. He wants to make you into someone beautiful and whole. He wants to make you a masterpiece of his work. As you respond to him in obedience, your heart becomes pure, able to be hammered into any shape he desires, and you become an expression of his genius.

Silver and gold are the best conductors of heat and electricity. A conductive substance is one through which power moves freely. A conductor transfers power from one object to another. A pure heart—a heart from which impurities have been removed—is a conductor of God’s power into lives and situations on earth. Your life will be the conductor of Christ’s life.

Silver and gold reflect light. Purified silver or gold reflects without distortion. The desires of a pure heart clearly reflect the desires of the Father. A pure heart is an undistorted reflection of his heart. Impurity will distort the reflection and will cause it not to be exact. This is why the Father wants to make you pure so that you desire what God desires.

God promises that anytime he turns up the heat, he does it to purify you so that his power can flow through you. Seek purity and you will find power.

Lord, I surrender to whatever it takes to clean out my life and make me like pure silver and pure gold.

Man willingly becomes the channel for the yearnings of God’s heart.

R. Arthur Mathews(1912–1978), missionary to China and author