Tasty Scripture

This is often what happens in the morning: I read some wonderful passages in the Bible, and i can't put it down. Then all the goodness that I keep reading gets sloughed off because I have other things to do. But when I meditate on it, by writing about it, either in my journal or elsewhere, I come to great conclusions, get super excited about the things that God says through the Bible, and live life fully.

The past few weeks I've been enlightened with an overall theme of a righteous leader: how to be one, how to live like God wants us too, and how to serve others as leaders. This post is not about that, because I feel there is much more scripture that I haven't come across yet that I deeply desire to, that will continue building my thoughts and post (or sermon/book).

This is about 2 Corinthians, which is a quite delicious serving of Scripture. :)

We'll start at chapter four verse seven, although I could start at chapter one verse one and never finish this post before church. This is the passage that talks about Jars of Clay. Not the band. But the band's inspiration. Now I hadn't figured out what Paul meant when he wrote  

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay yo show this all-surpassing power is from God and not us."

Now I have a new Bible since the last time I really thought about that, and there's a commentary. When I read what it said about jars of clay it totally clicked! Humans are made from clay, we are these jars of clay! But it's important to note that instead of gold, silver, cedar, topaz, or bronze, we are clay. This means that we break, we are fallible, as the commentary states.

We carry the treasure of God within us, but it's full proof it's God working through us at any time because we are wimpy jars of clay. We have no capability to be kind to others in the face of persecution, to bless our enemies when they hurl insults at us, or to endure harsh trials. Paul says it so well in the next verse (v8).

"We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed but not in despair; persecuted not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed."

This is because we have Christ within us! We can persevere through any hard time because we have Christ within us! :)

This next verse I'll be talking about (v13) is great.

"It is written, 'I believed; therefore I have spoken.'" 

Now I'm going to start there: we have this faith in Christ, and so we need to speak about it. It's not just something that we can believe with our whole hearts and not say a word about when we are surrounded by people that are going to "hard-press us from every side." Doesn't God want us to "consider it pure joy when we face hardships of any kind"?

"With the same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence." (13-14)

Faith means speaking. So if you don't speak, do you not have faith? Do you know why we are speaking? Because at our deaths we are going before God  in judgement for the things that we did for the Kingdom. What will you be able to say? Did you speak?

"Therefore do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly,we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen,but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary,but what is unseen is eternal." (v. 16-18)

Does what we look like, what this world looks like, what our homes, our careers, or how our facebooks look like matter? What really matters is our hearts. Where are we in our hearts? Are we pursuing Christ 100% all the time? Then is doesn't matter that your hair line is receding or you can't get rid of that last ten pounds. It doesn't matter that your lawn isn't perfect or you aren't popular enough. It doesn't matter if the audience you reach with your music is small (quality over quantity!). As long as you fix your eyes upon Christ, all that is supposed to happen in due time will happen. In due time. :) But nothing more.

Are you okay with nothing more? Are your wants overcoming letting Christ reign in all of your life?

I'm going to stop there, even though I read two more chapters after that that are chock full of spiritually whole grain goodies!