Passage of the Day - March 10, 2011

Zechariah 5:1-4

 ¹Then I lifted up my eyes again and looked, and behold, there was a flying scroll.

 ²And he said to me, "What do you see?" And I answered, "I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits and its width ten cubits."

 ³Then he said to me, "This is the curse that is going forth over the face of the whole land; surely everyone who steals will be purged away according to the writing on one side, and everyone who swears will be purged away according to the writing on the other side.

 ⁴"I will make it go forth," declares the LORD of hosts, "and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of the one who swears falsely by My name; and it will spend the night within that house and consume it with its timber and stones."

The Jews were enduring a time of refinement.  Most trials are a time of refinement.  When you refine anything, gold for example, it isn’t as simple as picking out the impurities and removing them.  It is a process of subjecting the entire lump to the process, the pure and the impure.  The impure will not be able to abide with the pure during the process and will remove themselves.

The same can be said for us when we endure refinement.  It isn’t just our sin that is subject to the sanctification process, but it is our entire being.  Why do bad things happen to good people?  In some instances God is refining good people into godly people.  We are His treasure and he wants us to shine with the brilliance He created us with.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®,
© Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation

Used by permission." (http://www.lockman.org/)