The Refiner's Process: Refinement

This is an excerpt from a message given at the Pembroke Fellowship Church Mother/Daughter Banquet in May. To read the first two parts, click on the links below.


The Refiner's Process

The Refiner's Process: Formation

Once a diamond or a precious stone has been mined, it has to be refined. Refinement is defined as: The process of removing impurities or unwanted elements from a substance. To improve or perfect by pruning or polishing; to free from what is coarse, vulgar, or uncouth; elevate.

 

The value of a diamond is determined by the 4C’s--color, clarity, cut and carat.

                               

Color—Diamonds come in every color and shape and so do God’s precious gems. You don’t have to be a size 2 with hair flowing down your back to be beautiful and brilliant. God made each of us beautiful and unique in our own way. You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

 Clarity—The clarity of a diamond is its purity. How many flaws or imperfections are in the stone. We’ve all been marred by sin. Sin clouds us. Sin is impurity. Un-confessed sin blocks intimacy with God. If you’re going to shine, you have to remove the sin from your life.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

 

The Refiner's Process: Formation

Part 2 of a message given in May during the Pembroke Fellowship Church Mother/Daughter Banquet.

A gem is a naturally occurring material desirable for its beauty, valuable in its rarity, and

sufficiently durable to give lasting pleasure. Today in gemology, there are four gems or stones that are labeled “precious”: rubies, diamonds, emeralds and sapphire. The other stones are called semi-precious.

 

The chemical composition determines what kind of gem is produced. For example, a diamond is formed from carbon. Rubies are composed of aluminum, oxygen and chromium. The process that the mineral goes through determines whether you get a precious gem or a rock.

 

You see there’s a difference between a rock and a ruby. There’s a difference between a stone and a sapphire.

 

You don’t just find gems lying on the street. Gems have to be mined and refined. You find gems hidden under ground because they are formed beneath the earth’s surface. Rare gems have to be formed. A jewel has been through a process that makes it valuable. Three things go into that process and they are the same things that go into forming you into God’s precious gem.

 

Searching for God

Her search for love led her to the love of the true and living God

By Latasha Williamson

When I was a little girl, I truly loved the Lord. I would pray every night and every day. I was raised in the church.

 I also genuinely loved people. I can remember meeting people and they would ask me, what do you want to be when you grow up and I would say with a big smile, “Me and my husband are going to go to Africa to save all the starving people.” I was very serious because I believed with all my heart that was my purpose.

As I began to grow, I was very much in tune with the feelings of others. Somehow, I would always know what someone was thinking and if they were sad or happy. It was as if something from the inside of them was speaking to my mind. For a long time, I didn’t know how to handle others feelings and emotions, especially when they were sad, distraught or troubled.

 I had to grow up fast. My parents divorced. My mother found herself a single mother with five children to raise. I was the oldest. At an early age, I had to help raise my sisters, which I felt took away from my childhood. There was a void inside of me that I tried to fill by looking for love in all the wrong places. I tried to fill the void with promiscuity and partying.

 My issues were spiraling out of control. I was having sexual relationships with different men, drinking excessively and partying. My mother and I stayed at odds. My junior year of high school, she sent me to live with my father. My father, who was an ordained pastor,  supported me and began teaching me about God. My deepest desire was to know the one and only living God.

I began a search to find this God that led me down a dangerous road to New Age religion.

When I went to college for my undergraduate degree, I attended church sporadically. Things in my life continued to get worse. By the time I was in graduate school, I stopped attending church all together.  I had decided to forget about Christianity and Jesus. I wanted a new way of life. I wanted to know the one and only living God. I had a big void in my life and I was searching for fulfillment. I just assumed that I tried Jesus and He wasn’t enough.

The Refiner's Process

This post is taken from a speaking engagement this May in Bradley, Illinois. The occasion was a Mother/Daughter Banquet hosted by the Pembroke Fellowship Church of Pembroke, Illinois. The theme was Women Reflecting God's Brilliance.

Scripture References:

Revelation 21: 9-11; 22-23

2 Corinthians 4: 7-9; 16-18

Isaiah 48:10

  
Ladies, you’re a gem. Like the New Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, you are a precious jewel. You’re more precious than rubies. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are God’s masterpiece, his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for you to do. You are valuable to God.

As a matter of fact, you’re so valuable and God loved you so much that He gave His only begotten Son to die for you. He loves you so much that He has prepared a place for you. He loves you so much that He wants to have a relationship with you and fellowship with you. He has counted every hair on your head and bottled every tear that you have cried. He loves you so much that he has plans and a purpose for you. Plans to prosper you and to give you a future and a hope.

But to be the jewel that you are, God, Our Refiner, has to put you through the process. To make you shine, like you were designed to shine, you have to be formed and fashioned, made and molded. 

This is for the Dark-Skinned Sistas

This is For the Dark-Skinned Sistas

Dec. 2003

 

By Monica Fountain

 

This is for the dark-skinned sistas

The chocolate wonders

The brown bombshells

 

This is for the one

Who was told don’t drink coffee

It’ll make you black

Make me black?

What is that?

As if I could be more black

As if just the color of my skin

Made me black

If coffee makes me black

Bring it on Joe

Give me a Starbucks grande double latte espresso

 

This is for the sister who was told

Don’t wear yellow

That’s too bright

Forget about red

You’re too dark

Black as night

Leave that for the light-skinned sista

With the long hair

As if my blackness was something to

Fear

 

This is for the sista

Made to feel less than by the

Brother

Who in amazement thought

He was giving you props

When he said,

“You’re sure cute to be so dark.”

 

Browner than a bag to a hue

As black as midnight blue

 

My dark sista

My ebony sista

My chocolate sista

Here’s to you

 

For your strength and the

Beauty of your dark tones

The orange in your skin

The browns, the golds

You are beautiful

With your big broad nose

And your nappy hair

In them big cornrows

Or precision pressed to straightness

Or permed to perfection to let the

Natural go

In dreadlocks or braids

Twists or curls

This is for you little black girl.

From the Editor--Spring 2013

With His Stripes

 

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.  Isaiah 53:5

 

What would your sign say? What is the thing that you need healing from? Is it physical? Is it emotional?  Is it a pain from the past that won’t go away?

Too many of us are the walking wounded, never exposing our pain. Hiding behind a mask. We anesthetize ourselves with alcohol or drugs. We search for love in all the wrong places and too many faces. Searching and trying to fill a void that only our Father can fill.

Whatever your issue, whatever the problem, God is willing and able to heal you. God wants to heal your body, soul and spirit. Your Heavenly Father wants you to be free.

This issue of The Well Magazine is dedicated to stories of healing. The women on the cover and those who share their stories within these pages have been healed. But the healing goes beyond the physical or a temporary, feel good fix. They have been healed by the blood of Jesus.

The blood of Jesus paid the price for all of our sins and that’s the true sickness that is at the heart of every issue.

We will all eventually die. Since Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden, we are destined to meet death. Because of sin there is death and disease. Because of sin there is dysfunction.  Because of sin, we have a distorted image of ourselves and God.

But because of the second Adam, Jesus Christ, we can have eternal life with God. When Jesus walked this earth, he healed the sick, showing his power over disease and demons. When he died on the cross and rose from the grave, he showed his power over death. When we trust in what Christ did on the cross and believe that God has raised him from the dead, we are healed from the power of sin and death, brought into a right relationship with our Heavenly Father and have eternal life with Him.

Before we go into eternity, however, God wants us to have life here and more abundantly. One of the ways that we can do that is by sharing our stories with transparency as the contributors of this issue have so that others can experience the love, freedom and forgiveness found in Christ. 

The Well Magazine Spring 2013

Click on the photo to read the latest issue of The Well Magazine

Question of the Week 4.15.13

 Reformed Christian rapper Shai Linne has a new track on his upcoming release called "False Teachers" in which he names some of the most popular preachers in America as "false teachers."

Click the link and listen to the video blog explanation of why this rapper put these "prosperity" preachers on blast.

What do you think? Are T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, Paula White, Creflo Dollar and Eddie Long false teachers? Has the gospel of Christ been hijacked by prosperity theology? Should Shai Linne have put their names out there like that?

Share your thoughts.

http://wadeoradio.com/why-shai-linne-put-joel-osteen-and-other-fale-teacher-on-blast/

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2013/04/reformed-rapper-shai-linne-false-teachers-joel-osteen-joyce-meyer-td-jakes.html

Question of the Week 4.8.13

How far should churches go to get their message across?

Billboards? Pastors preaching a series about sex from a bed? Ziplining across the sanctuary? Productions with animals in the pulpit? Are these effective ministry tools or too much?

Read the story about a church that posted a billboard saying, "Strip for me--Jesus" near a strip club and the other stories and videos and share your thoughts.

http://kfor.com/2013/03/28/church-posts-billboard-to-strip-for-jesus/

Pastor zip lines to the pulpit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9yEPMYvfOg

Pastor and wife 24-hour bed-in
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/13/pastor-and-wife-preach-married-sex-with-24-hour-bed-in/