Day 4 - “Refinement”
For Christians: Rededicating Ourselves to Refinement
Today we will be lighting the 5th candle.
It was the first, and probably one of the last rebellions in history when the Jews defeated an empire in the Holy Land. The Maccabees is a story of courage, ambition and a lot of Jewish Hoop-spa.
Recently, on the outskirts of the modern day city of Modein, a village was discovered during a building project to expand the city. The excavations revealed something amazing, a Jewish village from the time of the Maccabees. And in this Jewish village they found a number of things: a Main Street and other streets going out homes, water pits, wine presses and even a synagogue! This synagogue is considered to be one of the oldest synagogues discovered from the ancient world (from the time of the Hasmoneans), from the time of the Maccabees. It could very well be a synagogue in which the family attended.
The eighth and final battle between the Maccabees and the Seleucid forces saw the death of Maccabees leader Judah, but also the inevitable victory of the Maccabees leading to the formation of the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled the country for eighty years. It was the last Jewish controlled regime in the region until the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
The Maccabees is a fascinating book describing a revolt against evil, portraying some of the most iconic figures in the history of the Jewish people, proving that God will use any instrument he chooses to fulfill His plans and purposes on the earth. He may use nations, kings, fishermen, prophets or even a family member as a means to bring forth righteousness, like He did the Maccabees.
What if an injustice of great evil were to rise up around you? What would you do? What if God wanted you to respond in some way to take a stand against it? Would you be prepared for something like that? Would you be willing to lay down your life that that cause if it came to that?
Trials and tribulations are designed by God to refine our faith, if we let Him. Consider 1 Peter 1:6-8: Though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love.
Following Christ is no small task. It will require us to count the cost of being His follower and if we have what it takes to walk out a life of faithfulness to Him: For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it....So
likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple (Luke 14:28, 33).
Do you have enough in you to finish your race of faith well?
It is time now to light your fifth candle. Use the Shammash to light the first candle to the left of the shammash. Pray and ask God to refine you to true faithfulness. Dedicate yourself to Him, and His process of refinement, a process much like that a silversmith would apply to metal until it reached the point where he could see his own reflection in the vessel. That’s the goal: Christ’s image seen in us.
God Bless You.
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