Scripture says that we are like silver—purified, tried seven times. You understand the idea of silver being tried seven times, right? You take raw silver and boil it down, after which you skim off the impurities. Then you let it cool and you boil it again and skim off more impurities. You do that seven times. What happens at the end of the seventh time? You have very little, if any, impurities skimmed off and you have pure silver. During the process that silver is boiled, it is at the melting point. So God purifying us as many times, puts us under the fire of trials, then burns up and what comes to the surface? What is the impurities? Our lusts, our sin. In order for us to understand and to repent and for God to remove them, he brings trials in our life to show us and then removes them by Jesus Christ.1
Michael Voytek
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,