Hello and welcome again. We’re so glad to be doing this and to be able to share God’s word daily and we hope that you are being blessed as well, as much as we are. Today, we are looking at this question that the Lord Jesus asked Peter, who do you say that I am and I believe He’s asking each one of us that question, ‘who do you say that I am?’ and the answer that we can give can come from the revelation of God by the Holy Spirit. The revelation of God, some deep revelation of the person of Jesus whom the Holy Spirit can quicken to our hearts and this revelation changes us, it gives us conviction to live our lives the way He wants us to live, it gives us the faith to invite Him into our lives according to the revelation that we receive about who Jesus is.
So, today we are looking at this revelation of God, of the Lord Jesus that we see in Malachi Chapter 2 verses 2 and 3, it says, ‘but who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like launderer soap.’ Verse 3 says, ‘He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver. that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.’ So, we see here that the Lord is like a refiner’s fire and He is the refiner. He refines us so that our hidden faults are removed, He refines us so that all that is wasteful, all that is worthless, all that is not useful is removed out of our lives. Just like how a refiner will refine or a goldsmith will refine the gold or a worker of silver workmanship will refine the silver and remove it of everything not of value, anything that is mixed with other metal, the same way the Lord removes those things away from us.
We see this because He does this through the work of the Holy Spirit, He baptizes us with the Holy Spirit for this purpose and we see that in Matthew chapter 3, John the Baptist is introducing the Lord Jesus and he says that, but He who comes after me, He will baptize with Holy Spirit and with fire. He also says that you know the winnowing fan is in His hand and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor and He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire, referring to the work, the ministry of the Holy Spirit to refine a person’s life. We also see a picture of this in the teachings of the Lord Jesus in John chapter 15, when He said ‘I am the true vine and my Father is the vine dresser.’ He says, ‘every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away, but every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it that it may bear more fruit. He prunes it meaning He trims, He removes whatever is unproductive so that it might be fruitful. So, the refining is for our good, this pruning is for our good that we might be fruitful even more fruitful than we are, even more productive.
So, today if the Lord would ask that question, we can say Lord, you are my refiner and minister and refine and prune so that I might be even more fruitful. Shall we pray, Father, we thank you that you are our refiner, you refine us like gold, you prune us Lord so that we might be even more fruitful and Father God, we thank you that you choose to do this for our good. Lord, sometimes you bring in loving correction and it is always through your word and your Spirit because that’s your very best for us Lord and so God, we open our hearts to the ministry, to the work of your Holy Spirit even today, we thank you, in Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.
Ps Jeyakumar Isaiah/apcwo.org