Starting Right
Starting Right is a 5 minute Day Starter to help keep you motivated, encouraged, and focused throughout your day. DannyMac is a pastor, teacher, motivational speaker, husband, and father. His years of leading and training people have given him vast experience in helping individuals to accomplish change in their lives and meet their goals. He can help you set the course for your day by offering practical advice from God's Word in a positive and fun way. There is no better way to begin your day than by Starting Right with DannyMac.
Starting Right
Refining Silver, Reflecting Christ
Have you ever wondered how God works through your difficult times? The ancient process of silver refinement offers a profound spiritual metaphor that illuminates God's purpose in our trials.
As Ephesians 2:10 reminds us, "We are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works." The refining process, though often painful, prepares us for these divine purposes. Whatever challenges you're facing today, remember they aren't random or meaningless. God is attentively watching, removing what doesn't belong, and shaping you into a vessel that clearly reflects His character to a world desperately in need of seeing the genuine article.
Subscribe to Starting Right for daily five-minute devotionals that will help you begin each day with purpose and perspective. Together, let's discover how God is refining us to reflect His glory.
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right. I am Danny Mac and I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back and relax for the next five minutes as I help you start your day by starting right. Recently, as I was reading through the Bible, I came into Malachi, chapter 3 and verse 3, and it talks about God this way. He says he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. It reminded me of a story of a group of ladies who were attending a Bible study and they decided that they wanted to go and talk to a silversmith and find out a little bit more about the refining process. So off they went. As they talked to the silversmith, he talked about not only the casting process but how the refining process took place. In that refining process, you heat up the raw silver and you let the impurities rise to the top and then you take them off, and then, once that's done, you were able to use that silver to cast something new and something beautiful. One of the ladies asked the silversmith do you sit and watch it while it's going on? He said, yeah, I have to sit and watch it continually with my eyes on it, because if it is in the fire too long, it will actually injure the silver. At that point the lady remembered the words from Malachi he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. When we're going through things, when we're going through trials and we're going through frustrations, those things don't come upon us randomly, but when they do come, god uses them to make us better. As the ladies were finished their visit and were leaving the silversmith, she asked one more question. She said when do you know that the process is complete? The silversmith smiled and said well, that's actually quite simple. When I can see my own image in the silver, the refining process is finished, isn't it the truth? God wants to be able to see him in us and he wants other people to be able to see him in us. He is the refiner. He's refining you and I every day by what we're going through, and he continually shows us more about himself in everything that we do, and eventually he wants people to be able to see in us who he is.
Speaker 1:Richard Wurmbrandt was a minister in Romania during the communist rule and he was put into prison for his faith by the communist authorities. Two and a half years of that time in prison he was in solitary confinement. He later on went to write the book In God's Underground. In that book he tells the story about one day a young communist man was thrown into his cell because the young man had said something that the state didn't like very much. So Wurmbrandt introduced himself as a pastor. The young man told him that he wanted nothing to do with Christianity. Quoting the Marxist mantra religion is the opiate of the people. So Wurmbrandt didn't try to evangelize him. As rations were very meager in prison, wurmbrandt used to share his bread with the young man and slowly over time they became friends. And one day the young man said Tell me, who is Jesus like? Wormbrant replied quietly Jesus is like me, to which the young man replied Then I would like to get to know him. I like that story a lot.
Speaker 1:When we know that we are living the life Christ wants us to live so clearly and so properly that we have the boldness and the assurance to say Jesus is like me, and when we say that the people we say it to have seen Jesus in us so much and so often that they say I want that too. This morning. I want you to know that many of us are going through that refining process. We're being refined, we're having the impurities worked out of our lives to leave something that God can now take and mold into whatever shape that he wants, and he can only fully do that when he can see Himself clearly in our lives. I'll leave you with this verse today Ephesians, chapter 2 and verse 10.
Speaker 1:For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. So, my friends, as we are being refined, as we are going through the processes that are sometimes very difficult, let God remove the things from our lives that need to be pulled off, the crud that needs to be removed from us we all have some and then let our lives reflect who Jesus really is, so people around us can see him and see his love and his reality in us. I hope you have an awesome day, my friends. Take care. God bless you. We'll talk to you tomorrow. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Thank you for listening today and I invite you to join me Monday to Friday, right here on Starting Right with Danny Mac.
