What kind of vessel are
you? If you read my last entry you will
try to be a pliable vessel so that you can be formed into exactly what God
wants to use for His glory. Do you think
that there are other vessels (people) more important than you? Consider the following thoughts:
“Yet,
O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our Potter, and we all are
the work of Your hand.” Isaiah 64:8 AMP
New
Webster’s Dictionary states that “content” (pronounced CON-tent) means “that
which is contained or capacity’. A
vessel is something that is used for two things: as a thing of beauty (as in a
decorative vase) or a thing to contain something (as in a bottle of wine). When God makes a vessel he can make it for
either reason but we can be sure, He has a distinct purpose for each vessel.
We
(mankind) tend to judge what we think has value by what it looks like or how
old it is. For an example let’s look at
a vase. A vase made to hold flower
arrangements appears simple so as to not take away from the beauty of the
flowers. Yet consider a vase from the
Ming Dynasty in China. We place much more value on it because of how
old and rare it is, yet both vases are just containers when you get down to it.
It
is the same with people. It is always
the people we consider beautiful or handsome that we tend to consider as more
valuable. Models, movie and TV stars,
and beauty pageant contestants are the people we admire. Yet where would we be without the Einsteins,
Carvers, and Christopher Columbus’s in the world? If you enter a teenager’s room today you
probably would not see posters of Thomas Edison, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, but
without them we would not have the ease of communicating by blogs like
these. Who are we to decide that only
the “beautiful” people have value?
“But who are you, a mere man, to criticize and
contradict and answer back to God? Will what is formed say to him that formed
it, Why have you made me thus? Has
the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same mass (lump) one
vessel for beauty and distinction and honorable use, and another for menial or
ignoble and dishonorable use? What
if God, although fully intending to show [the awfulness of] His wrath and to
make known His power and authority, has tolerated with much patience the
vessels (objects) of [His] anger which are ripe for destruction?” Rom. 9:20-22
Back
in the days before we had indoor plumbing we used out-houses. Because it too cold at night to go outside to
the out-house we used chamber pots.
These were medium size pots (usually large enough to hold a gallon of
liquid) kept in a small cabinet. We
would take the pot out, use it and then return it to the cabinet. In the morning it would be taken out, dumped
into the out-house, and then cleaned and returned to the cabinet for use the
next night. I did not intend to
gross-you-out but a chamber pot is an excellent example of an ignoble or menial
vessel. Just because it is not as
beautiful as say a wine decanter does not mean that it is not needed. Every vessel has a purpose and need and you
can be sure that for every vessel God creates He has a purpose and plan for its
use.
We
tend to think that evangelists, missionaries, pastors and preachers are more
important that just one person talking to another about the Lord, after all
they bring thousands to accept Jesus as their Savior. We look at Billy Graham with a bit of awe at
the hundreds of thousands that he has led to the Lord, compare our little bit
of sharing with others and feel he and those like him are the vessels of God
with distinction and honor while we are the vessels of menial use. I tell you one thing though, if I lived in
the days before indoor plumbing I would be very grateful for that one little
chamber pot that would keep me from freezing on a cold hard seat in the
out-house in the middle of the night. In
the same way I am very grateful to a high school friend named Mary Snodgrass
who shared Jesus with me and helped me see Him as my Savior. She was not famous. She was not in the popular crowd in high
school. She may have been disliked by
some and ridiculed for her last name, but she was a vessel of the Lord that He
used to lead me to salvation.
So
there are some grand vessels of God like Billy Graham and some menial vessels
of God like Mary Snodgrass. Yet all the
vessels that God creates have one thing in common; they are filled with the
Holy Spirit. They contain the very
Spirit of God and He uses them to fulfill His plan and purpose for His glory.
“Do
you not know that your body is the temple
(the very sanctuary) of the Holy Spirit Who lives within you, Whom you have
received (as a Gift) from God? You are not your own.” 1 Corinthians 6:19 AMP
One
more thing for us to consider regarding vessels of God. Although it is God’s purpose to fill us with
His Holy Spirit we have a tendency to try to fill ourselves with things that do
not conform to the will of God. When we
do that we become vessels used for dishonor.
Paul reminds us to shun and cleanse ourselves from such things and to
pursue those things that conform to the will of God (2 Tim. 2:22).
“SO WHOEVER CLEANSES HIMSELF
FROM WHAT IS IGNOBLE AND UNCLEAN, WHO SEPARATES HIMSELF FROM CONTACT WITH
CONTAMINATING AND CORRUPTING INFLUENCES WILL THEN HIMSELF BE A VESSEL SET APART
AND USEFUL FOR HONORABLE AND NOBLE PURPOSES, CONSECRATED AND PROFITABLE TO THE
MASTER, FIT AND READY FOR ANY GOOD WORK” 2 TIM. 2:21 AMP
I
have chosen to separate myself from contact with anything He shows me to be
contaminating and corrupting. I have
determined that I want to be FULL of God’s Spirit and be used to fulfill His
plans for His glory. I want to be the
vessel He created me to be. How about you?
