Everything has a melting point. Butter has a low one. Other things have a very high melting point. It is important for us to determine our melting point so God can shape us. We must first be moldable; we must be melted. The Bible says in the last days that iniquity will abound and that people will wax cold.
There are factors involved in molding. When something is cold and hard it must be softened to be molded or it remains rigid. God doesn’t want us in this form. When we’re hard in heart and rigid, we are not moldable. In the arrogance of the people of Israel, they thought they were all right. It was only a pretense. They were hard and cold toward God, stiff necked and rigid. Their own deceit was first toward themselves, then they thought they could fool their neighbors, and God himself. This can characterize us if we’re not careful. These things are easy to see in someone else but hard to see in ourselves.
After a hot summer, the first frost feels so cold. After a few weeks we get used to it and don’t notice the chill quite so much. That’s what we tend to do with the Lord—gradually get cold, hard, and stiff. He wants us pliable. To be workable, one must be pliable. Mold-able means there is a specific purpose. To do it, we must be melt-able. To be pliable is like kneading dough. Someone’s hands do the work.
For a demonstration, here are two jars with water in them. One is frozen; one is not. That means there are two forms: liquid and solid. The determining factor is the temperature. The freezing point is 32 degrees Fahrenheit. The colder it gets, the harder it gets. When the temperature is below zero, it’s very hard to clear off the driveway. Temperature is important.
There is a difference in clarity. You can see through the water; you can’t see through the ice. When we’re cold and indifferent on the Lord, we don’t see clearly and can be deceived. Verse 6 says deceit was the problem. When we’re useable, we’re transparent before God and man.
When we let the Lord melt us, it changes us. Water takes on the shape of the jar. God has a perfect will for each of us. It’s good and reasonable service. He has a jar for each of us that he wants us to be molded to. Ice is not conformed to the jar. It’s lumpy and sharp. You can make ice cubes in any kind of shape you want. We must be careful not to become what we want. We need to be conformed to what God would have us be. Water in a frozen state takes up more space, but it has less content. If we remain cold and rigid, we’re not half what God wants us to be. He can’t use us in this state.
Ephesians 2: 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. By his grace we are melted. He’ll heat and shape us into something useable. It has to be his workmanship, not ours. The jar contains the water, not the water containing the jar. We cannot contain God; he must contain us. And it must be in the shape he chooses, not us.
Romans 12: 1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. We must present ourselves sacrificially. Put God first. The only way to be acceptable is to be pliable—surrendered to God’s will for our life.
Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Melting the ice—renewing the mind—is what will change our shape into what God would have us be. It’s a matter of being what He wants, not what we want.
Is this not God’s goal? Is it possible? The only way we are what we are is because God made us so. We must follow him. He’ll turn up the temperature and reshape us. The only way for the Lord to turn up the heat is for us to get on the eye of his stove. We must surrender and humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God to be melted and shaped.
Let’s be melt-able so we can be mold-able.
Adwolfe Freewill Baptist Church 