Friday, October 16, 2020

Refiners' Fire

Malachi 3:2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap:

Tonight, we read 3 Nephi 24, in which Jesus recites the above verse, referring to Himself and His own Second Coming. I'm not well studied on what "fullers' soap" is, but I understand refining well enough. Essentially, you get a metal hot enough, and it'll melt, and all the impurities in it will either float to the top of the molten metal, sink to the bottom, or simply burn away. If we don't want to be among the impurities that get skimmed off, sink, or burn away, we need to perform this purifying process ourselves and clear out the impurities in our lives. Essentially, we need to repent, or before too awfully long, we'll be in trouble.

Whether we live long enough to see Jesus come again or whether we die and go to Him, we are going to stand before Him at some point. At that day, our ability to abide in His presence will depend entirely on how much we've already been refined and how much refining we still need. Let's get that process going sooner rather than later. We don't want to get caught unrefined when that day comes.

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