We are vessels uniquely made by
God. He created our bodies, but this “vessel”
has little to do with skin that grows wrinkled with age. If we let Him, God’s artistry makes our inner
form more pliable and stronger throughout our lives.
He does not toss the undeserving
aside as garbage or make us perfect to sit untouched as knick-knacks. He focuses dysfunction until we become
essential. He desires to reform the
broken and rededicate the lifeless. He
creates utilitarian vessels, beautifully crafted and practical. He fashions each one of us in a style and
size all our own, for His purposes.
God becomes our passion and
fills us with fire that satisfies. Without
fire, our usefulness draws dust. Filled
with strange fire, we become an abomination.
With His fire, we become exceptional.
Sometimes we are small
vessels. Censers contain only a very tiny
fire, but that fire combined with a bit of incense produces an aroma that fills
a room with perfume. Firepots, lidded
bowls, store embers for tomorrow’s bonfire.
A single candle can light a room, flooding out the darkness of stumbling
fear.
Sometimes God expands our
vessels to contain a blaze. As a torch,
we carry His brilliance into the darkest pits.
A brilliant beacon on a hill calls the lost home. Controlled wildfire pushes back the enemy and
destroys its escape.
Our willingness to house God’s
fire builds His Temple within us. We
become a holy place where seekers meet their Creator. He can take even “the least” of us and form
that vessel into His holy altar when we confess sins to one another. God does all the rest.
Throughout our lives, our
Creator wants us to present our personal sins.
He waits for us to sacrifice our selfishness and pride, those thoughts
and actions that block the light. He daily
purifies us with His own blood and removes transgressions from our record. He smelts our life into malleable gold.
God does the same with our community’s
corporate sins, those acts that bind us together but are not His ways. We blind ourselves to these by claiming they
are other people’s sins, not ours. Fighting
the great world sins is more important.
However, the community that needs repentance consists of believers only. Complacency allows the world’s ways to become
normality. Like the Jews of the Bible,
Christians believe they are saved simply because they call themselves
Christian. Hardness grows within. This pride-filled sense of security lets
strange fire fill our vessel.
Eventually, God will purge the offence. His fire produces a clean people.
The fire is God. This is not just a symbol or metaphor. God’s presence is living fire. Through our obedience, God teaches His ways
of love. We simply hold the fire.
Be His vessel.
[Lessons from Creation’s
Parables: Genesis and Standard Science, Sung as One, by Jo Helen Cox.]
[Lessons from God
Makes Us Holy, by Jo Helen Cox. This
book is available on Amazon.]