“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.
But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years. - Malachi 3:1-4
We sing about "create in me a clean heart" and "refiner's fire" in worship songs as if it is such a warm, fuzzy and desirable thing. Desirable unless you are the thing being burnt or scrubbed. "But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?"
God wants pure people, people whose loyalty is undivided. I think he teaches us who we really are--whether we are his people--by offering us choices time and time again and letting us see what we do with that choice. God is not surprised by the choices, nor is he necessarily surprised by our answers but I think that sometimes we are surprised that we are or are not the type of people that we thought we were.
Those choices that he offers can be hard choices between what we really really want and God. God asks which is important and I think that we are sometimes shamed into admitting that the other thing that I am choosing is actually more important than God. That is very humbling to admit, but I think that it is the foundation for the people who want to live lives acceptable to God--lives that are significant.
So the fire is painful not just because it hurts. And not because the other thing was even bad. But because we choose something that is not God. We are faced with what is really important and the choice signals for us a chance to choose God.
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