OUR IMPURITIES WILL PURIFY US

OUR IMPURITIES WILL PURIFY US

Everything that can stand fire, you shall make go through fire, and it shall be clean. Nevertheless it shall also be purified with the water of impurity; and all that cannot stand fire you shall pass through water (Num.31:23).

Going through fire or water is a prerequisite to being cleansed and refined. The water is the strong, gushing rain that we experience. It is the storm that we face. The fire is the furnace that we go through.

God knows how long and how much we can stand … our perseverance, our stamina, our faith, our persistence, and our surrender. He will break us according to our ability to cope. The more difficult our testing is, the more consecrated we will become.

What caused us to be impure is what God will also use to purify us. “Your sin will find you out” (Num. 32:23). Your sin will convict you. Our sin will make us feel so dirty. This will lead us to repent before the Lord, afterwhich He will let us go through water or fire.

Think about the times when you really repented before God. Think about those times when you felt so worthless, so sinful, and so dirty. Didn’t your own impurities lead you at the foot of the cross? Didn’t your own sins make you feel so convicted? Didn’t you feel disgusted with yourself? Didn’t you feel so desperate to be delivered from your sin?

This is what repentance is really all about … a feeling of disgust over our sin, desperation to be delivered, a decision to turn from our wrong ways.

And this is what our water or fire brings about in us.

+++Lisa Maki+++