Kings reveal the Glory of God

Proverbs 25:2-5
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings. 3 As the heavens are high and the earth is deep, so the hearts of kings are unsearchable. 4 Remove the dross from the silver, and a silversmith can produce a vessel; 5 remove wicked officials from the king’s presence, and his throne will be established through righteousness.
One of the amazing things about fasting is that it puts you into the frame of mind that teaches you to seek after God. Simply put, it keeps you humble. While you are sitting there, doing something out of the ordinary, your body, or perhaps your mind if you are not fasting food, reminds you that you are "doing it wrong." What it doesn't seem to get, though, is that it is God's glory, His grandeur, His very nature to conceal a matter for us so that we can dig deeper into Him. The great thing about that is that we can simply humble ourselves, repent, turn from sin, and we can have the opportunity to get bit by bit, clue by clue. You and I have the opportunity to be co-heirs with Christ. He is the KING OF KINGS, the LORD OF LORDS, that makes us Kings and Lords, too, under Him! As I read on, what intrigued me about this verse is the talk of silver-smithing. Specifically, the mention of "dross" in v.4 .

Dross is...


Dross is scum. It is a by product of the collection of minerals, carbon, and other natural byproducts that melded together over the course of time and pressure into the silver ore. To get the ore, there is usually a fair amount of imperfection in the silver, this dross must be dealt with. As we human beings being life, we begin as faulty creatures. It is in us. We have sin in us like we have genes. We all carry sin like a genetic disease. A disease that can be traced back to Adam, through Noah. While not humanly fatal, our disease kills our relationship with God and so cuts off our spirit from the Spirit of God. Our dross, whether addiction, lust, lying, pride, or any other sin, can only be wholly "leached" out of us by the Spirit of God. As he works, it hurts a lot. The acid of the Holy Spirit burns away at all the inward dross and the more we take time to allow his presence to work, the more it works on our outsides too. The problem we most often run into, though, is that we do not want to remove the dross. Just like the wicked officials that need to be removed in verse 5, we have things in our lives that need to be removed, rooted out, gotten rid of, and not all of them are physical items. Sometimes we have attitudes and behaviors that spring up, trying to get their ways, vying for our attention and money, just like corrupt officials; lobbying for their own agenda. The reassuring thing to me is that once we do not have to send them, the dross, the wicked officials, the sin, packing on our own. We simply have to allow Jesus to transform us. There is a silversmith, working to make you, the silver, into a beautiful vessel; polished, ready for service, ready to be looked at and admired, but he can't if we won't allow the dross to come off. That silver smith is none other than Jesus Christ. SELAH

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