Grace Awakening

Imagine if you were to offer to your wife a beautiful lump of gold ore hanging from a chain or maybe to your fiancée on the day that you propose marriage to her.  What do you think the reaction would be to the lump of impure gold?  The reality is this:  the purity and higher value of gold comes through the process of refinement.  That can only happen through the heat and pressure of the crucible.

There are many reasons why we would want to avoid the Crucible of God.  It hurts (extremely, sometimes), it takes us off our game, it robs us of our enjoyment of what this world offers, and it hurts (a lot!).  I certainly do not welcome the pain of the Crucible.  I do not want the introspection that comes with the pressure and the heat of what God is trying to accomplish.  As God peels back the layers of my life – the walls that I have built to protect myself and the enjoyments that I have amassed to amuse myself – there is a process of refining through the pain.  So, through the pain of refinement there is immense beauty in the Crucible (although, you have to open the eyes of your heart to see it).

In the Crucible, I see the beauty of a relationship with God.  God does not tolerate sin.  It violates His holiness, and is diametrically opposed to His Divine character.  For you and I to have a close relationship with God, there must be a removal of sin and of self.  It is the only way that the relationship can be restored.  When we are placed into the Crucible and begin to allow the fire of God to refine us, the dross of our life begins to bubble away, leaving only the true self.  God designed us to have a relationship with Himself.  He wants the real person not the fake one we often show to the world around us.  So, in the Crucible, we are refined to grow closer to God.

In the Crucible, I see the beauty of God’s great love.  Yes, we know that God loved us and sent Jesus Christ to die for us.  That is only the beginning of God’s love.  The very fact that you or I are considered worthy of refinement is a testament to the love with which God loves us.  It is His love that wounds us.  It is His love that heals us.  It is His love that restores us to Himself.

In the Crucible, I see the beauty of God’s holiness.  God desires a holy people who are called by His name.  Do you fully understand that when you accepted Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross that you became God’s son (John 1:12)?  Do you fully realize that you wear His name now?  You and I represent God to a lost and dying world.  You and I represent holy God to this perverse world.  Why does it surprise us that God would then demand holiness of those who represent His holiness?  The Crucible does that.  It snaps our attention to God.  It drives in the point that God is a holy God and demands it of His own children.  When we ignore that call to holiness, God moves to remind us again that we are called to be a holy people.

The beauty of the Crucible is the results that it produces.  So often we resist and avoid the refining of God.  But that is exactly what we need to draw close to the only wise God.  I do not like the Crucible.  I don’t think you do or will either.  But it is necessary.  It is to God’s glory.