Brown's Daily Word 11-06-09

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for His Word. It is written that "the grass withers and flowers fail, but the Word of our Lord endures for ever". I recall hearing for the first time II Cor. 4:7-12, as it was shared with me by my uncle, who was a lover of the Lord and a lover of His Word. He had only an 8th grade education but he was blessed with a beautiful mind. He can still read the word of God and could share from it with great imagination. I was a young boy when he shared with me about "Jars of Clay". We are “Jars of Clay” in whom the Lord lives and through whom He is seen.
One of the things entrusted to every follower of Christ is the knowledge of the good news that is in Jesus Christ, the presence of God, and the opportunity to be used of God. These things are placed within us in order that others may see the glorious power of God. Our lives are “containers” or “vessels” or “jars of clay” in whom God lives and through whom God works.
My wife, Alice was, given a set china which has intrinsic value because it is both rare and irreplaceable. Additionally, we have assigned considerable extrinsic value to the dishes beyond the actual worth of the china, because of the sentimental value we have attached to it. The "good china" is mostly for looking and is only used on very special occasions. Our everyday dishes are considerably less valuable and are more easily replaced. There is little intrinsic or extrinsic value assigned to our everyday dishes. If one gets broken, there no great sense of grief of loss.
We may live under the illusion that we are fine-china people, but in fact we are more like everyday dish people. Our Lord lives in and through ordinary people.
But this precious treasure – this light and power that now shines within us is held in earthen vessels, that is, in our weak bodies. So everyone can see that our glorious power is from God and is not our own. II Corinthians 4:7
We are told that the precious treasure is the glory of God as revealed in Christ. And, we are told that we are jars of clay. In other words, God has placed himself in very ordinary, everyday people.
We may assign a great deal of extrinsic value to our bodies and spend thousands and thousands of dollars on our bodies, but unless a person has a mouthful of gold teeth, his intrinsic value is actually quite insignificant. A trivia web site notes that the elements in the skin that covers the human body is worth about $4.50… based on the cost of cow hide, which is about 25 cents per square foot, our skin is worth $3.50 of the $4.50 estimated value. (http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/worth.asp)
The idea is that a clay container is unworthy to hold a thing such as the glory of God. The earthen vessel or jar of clay, like the human body is frail, fragile, and easily returned to dust or clay. (Albert Barnes, Barnes Notes, II Corinthians - Galatians, P. 83)
God deliberately chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. He chose the powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important, so that no one can ever boast in the presence of God. I Corinthians 1:27-29 We must stand in stark contrast to the treasure within us; otherwise we will be mistaken for the treasure. That is what God was saying through the prophet Zachariah when he said, “This is what the Lord says: It is not by force or by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty… then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me.” Zechariah 4:6-9
The visual imagery in of verses II Corinthians 4:8-10 is of gladiatorial or military combat. In a series of statements Paul describes jars of clay people as people who never give up:
• They may be pressed on every side by troubles, but they are not crushed.
• They may be at their wits end, but we are never at hopes end
• They may be persecuted, but God never abandons them.
• They may get knocked down, but they get up and keep going.

When we go through the knocks of life we are reminded that the only thing that distinguishes us from all the other people who are being knocked around, is the way we respond to it. Russian author Dostoevski, best known for his Notes from the Underground, was imprisoned and exiled to Siberia in 1849. He told how, when he was kept in solitary confinement for his political opinions, the little shutter in his cell door was opened every evening, and a mysterious voice whispered, “Courage, brother, we also suffer.”
“The supreme characteristic of the Christian is not that he does not fall, but that every time he falls, he rises again. It is not that he is never beaten, but he is never ultimately defeated.” (William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible, II Corinthians 4:9, P. 223) Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be obvious in our dying bodies. So we live in the face of death, but it has resulted in eternal life for you.” II Corinthians 4:11-12
We live our lives so that others may see the presence of God and receive the person of Christ into their lives.
The Hoover Dam, which was built in the 1930s, is something of an engineering marvel. Originally engineers focused on functionality rather than aesthetics, but under the influence of British architect Gordon Kaufmann, the dam took the look of both a thing of function and streamlined beauty.
A Norwegian immigrant sculptor, Oskar Hansen was responsible for the 30 foot bronzed statues that represented “that eternal vigilance which is the price of liberty.” He also created a bronze plaque memorializing the 96 workers who died during the construction of the dam. The inscription reads, “They died to make the desert bloom.” (Bureau of Reclamation: Lower Colorado Region: The Grand Dam; www.usbr.gov/lchooverdam/History/articles/rhinehart1.htm1)
The image of lives being lived and even lost in the building of a great dam that would provide irrigation for the southwest is not lost on us. We understand and hope that others will be blessed by the living out of our lives. As stewards of a precious treasure, we live as jars of clay so that the life of Christ may be seen in our bodies and result in eternal life for others.
In Jesus the Saviour and the Lord,
Brown



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKy_NxB398