Know your role

What did you just call me?

2 Corinthians 4:7 HCSB

Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us.

At various times in scripture we are compared to clay. Jeremiah uses the idea of a potters house when he is speaking to Israel. It’s a hard thing to hear, a hard thing to realize when you read what God is saying to Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 18:1–4 HCSB

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Go down at once to the potter’s house; there I will reveal My words to you.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, working away at the wheel. But the jar that he was making from the clay became flawed in the potter’s hand, so he made it into another jar, as it seemed right for him to do.

The message renders verse 4 a bit differently

Jeremiah 18:4 The Message

Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot.

If we pop over to the NLT it offers a bit more vivid picture.

Jeremiah 18:4 NLT

But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over.

In each of these instances God is telling Jeremiah something important. God does not give up on his creation or his people nearly as quickly as we give up on ourselves. Inherent in this parable that Jeremiah is giving is an understanding that people will mess up, mistakes will be made, sin does happen. So many times we look at those times as the end of it. I can never do the right thing, what’s the use in trying to live a life that pleases God I’m just going to mess up. But God looks at those mess ups and mistakes and sin and does something amazing. Look what it says..

Jeremiah 18:8 HCSB

However, if that nation I have made an announcement about turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the disaster I had planned to do to it.

Far from just giving us a pass when we mess up, God tells us that as we repent as we recognize he takes us and begins again the process of making us into what we are designed to be.

Paul understands this analogy, remember he was a person who knew the law, he knew the prophets, when he says we have this treasure in Jars of Clay he is making sure the Corinthians understand. We have been remade, we have been taken from the wheel and remade into something more.

So when we are called clay we are in good company, we can be molded and shaped by God as long as we are willing to place ourselves in his hands. We can learn from scripture that even the people we see as giants in the faith were also clay. Also people that had good and bad qualities.

The treasure is what matters

Looking at that first part of verse 7 again we see that Paul talks about having “this treasure” A quick look up to verses 5 and six tell us what that treasure is.

2 Corinthians 4:5–6 HCSB

For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves because of Jesus. For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

The treasure Paul is talking about, the one that makes it possible for the good stuff we are about to read is the person and work of THE light living and active in our hearts and lives. The light of the gospel that brings our minds and hearts into the realization that we need God in our lives. When that light hits us can not only see the need to change but we can change due to Christs work in and through our lives. Which brings us to the amazing thing that Jesus enables in our lives.

He’s got your back

2 Corinthians 4:8–9 HCSB

We are pressured in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed.

It’s important to realize that the reason we are not crushed the reason that we don’t despair or have to worry about being abandoned or destroyed is because of the treasure placed in our fragile vessel. (balloon object lesson)

As we live in this time, as we walk through our days when things we don't understand when problems when fears and anxieties come we can, because of our relationship with Jesus lean into this one truth. He has our back.

Dying to Live

The way things were. Talk about the importance of clothes, or shoes, or hair, wanting to look like the people that mattered. How the shoes make you fast, or the clothes make you desirable etc.

Reality is that we are supposed to be more and more like Christ. When people see us that is who they should see, and in order for that to happen we have to realize that we are going to become less and less as his character becomes more and more in our lives.

2 Corinthians 4:10 HCSB

We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

dying to our self so that he can live in us and through us is what it’s all about. As people see more of Jesus in us they will be attracted to what matters. The nature of Christ living and active in us brings about the change that we as humans are constantly striving for. As he becomes more we become less and in becoming less we become all we were designed to be..Eternal beings designed for relationship with Christ.

What really matters

2 Corinthians 4:18 HCSB

So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

This Week’s Challenge

What matters to you? This is a question only you can answer. Has the treasure in your heart grown dim? Are you focused more on what is seen than what matters? Is eternity in your mind and heart, or is the “real world” your focus? If you are ready for it go to the Facebook page and follow the links for the reading plan placed there, journal what you learn in reading that plan.