Paula had the opportunity a few years ago to take her favorite husband on a trip, just the two of us. We have had an occasional night or two away, but this was the first real vacation we had set out on alone, since the honeymoon 43 years ago.
Part of the tour was planned to introduce her to places in the Upper Peninsula that I considered noteworthy, before we would explore together other areas neither of us had been to before. One region we visited was the Keweenaw Peninsula. We wandered its length, taking in beautiful scenery, lake view vistas, and a few historical spots from the boom days of mining. We enjoyed a picnic at Copper Harbor’s public launch, where we were the only visitors, save for a pair of Loons (Red Throated?) paddling in the cove and calling out between dives with their distinctive lonely wail. It was perfect.
I was impressed with a repeated sight at several of the mining ruins in the peninsula. This was the immense “poor rock” piles; the detritus left nearby the mine openings, hauled out by the ton in the process of extraction. If you were going for copper, you had to expel a lot of useless material to get to the profitable ore.
I think of that sight, and how it illustrates to me the process of refinement in a believer’s life. The purifying is not a quick and easy experience.
Much debris has to be pulled out of the way in our lives, in order to present that which ultimately will be useful for refinement. For the follower of Christ, spiritually crippling things need to be cast off, as the teaching of the Lord in Mark 9:43-48 declares. Some worthless things just need to be removed, plainly and quickly, even radically. Yet other things, like the ore that holds potential riches, need processing, refining, cleansing and purifying through the application of fire.
Our Lord speaks to this as I continue reading in Mark: “For everyone will be salted with fire.” Mark 9:49 (NASB)
My view on this teaching from Jesus considers what God shares about “fire” in His Word. Fire can be awful; fearsome. Consider both the unquenchable fire for unbelievers (:43-48) and the burning up of unprofitable works for the believer who lapsed in obedience to His Master (1 Cor. 3:11-15). Yet fire can also be a positive, purifying thing, as the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers (Luke 3:16). See also Prov. 17:3; Psalm 66:10; Job 23:10; Rev. 3:18.
In mining, the ore removed for smelting has no choice in the matter. It receives what man determines to do. But in our lives, the choice of rejection or cooperation with the Spirit of God seems to be the pivot. That is, our continual cleansing (by being salted with purifying fire) must first find our yieldedness to accept the fire. Let me illustrate:
Like many of us, I have an ongoing issue with skin pre-cancers and cancers. Monitoring is frequent. Some treatments I can do at home. With rechecks, the areas that did not respond to rounds of chemo cream (relatively painless) then require a more radical treatment—surgery—to be employed. Depending on the type of cancer, it may well call for biopsy and probable surgery without delay; there is no option for a “home kit” for these.
The common factor in every instance is my willingness to take the “fire” of treatment in order to kill that which could kill me. If I choose to ignore, or postpone, or treat with my own system (no, Windex did not work…) then I have consequences that come from that stance.
In our lives, if we reject the work of the Spirit’s refining, we wallow in sin to our own detriment. The challenge is to receive His fire as good, though it will involve pain. He will reshape our priorities, deepen our love for our gracious Lord, and move us closer to Him. It will be new life for our conscience, new freedom to walk in for witness and proclamation, and a lightness that only comes through the clarity of serving one Master. We will be satisfied in Him as the things of this world “grow strangely dim.”
As we come nearer, we will want nothing but Him, His Word, and His Spirit’s work. We will learn how good it is to embrace His fire, salted on us.
May we run to, and embrace, that purifying flame.
Cornerstone Community Church 