Dross or Gold?

He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and shall purify

the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver.  Malachi 3:3

What do we prize in a day when values are slipping:  the dross of human cleverness and worldly resources, or the gold and silver of divine origin and redemption through Christ?  Many things in Christianity have become cheap today, but there is no easy shortcut to spiritual worth.  Preaching, prayer, witness, these may not seem difficult, but to be of value they will be costly in years and blood and divine discipline.  God's "vessel unto honor" is the man who has waited for the Spirit to teach him, and who has not been ashamed meanwhile to admit he does not know.  For there comes a day when the true character of things is tested.  Preaching, in an hour of departure and confusion, is of little value unless men see God in it.  At such a time they can tell whether the speaker has really been taken by God through the things of which he speaks.  What has not already touched him deeply will have little power to touch others in that day.

Watchman Nee, A Table in the Wilderness