So if you believe the Holy Spirit is in you and with you, then you have Jesus with you, but you have to accept that reality by faith. Do not rely on feelings at all. We need to learn to walk by faith. How do we do so? The Lord said to Joshua that he must meditate on the Word day and night (Joshua 1:8).
You may say, But Brother, meditating all day and night is not possible for me. I work all day; I have children to look after. Tell me, when you are in a car or on a bus, what do you think about? When you go to bed before going to sleep, what do you think about?
Paul said that we must exercise ourselves unto godliness, (1 Timothy 4:7). Godliness does not happen overnight. Its just like physical exercise. If you have not run for a long time and you take your running shoes out and go for a 10-mile run, you will be in really bad shape. No, you start slowly, maybe running for half a mile, and you slowly build your endurance. Meditating is similar. You start for a short time and build up, but like any form of exercise, meditating takes discipline.
Instead of thinking bad thoughts about your neighbour, a habit which comes naturally for many of us, start meditating. Think of a Scripture; what does it mean? Do not move away from that Scripture until it truly becomes part of you.
The apostle Paul wrote about an incredible treasure in 2 Corinthians 4:7, where he said, But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
When you were small, did you ever play a game of pirates, where you and your friends drew maps with palm trees, waterfalls, and buried treasure? The location of the buried treasure was always marked with an X. Treasure hunters are always looking for treasures left by previous civilizations.
But the greatest treasure in the whole universe is right inside you! Im talking about a huge amount of wealth so immense that we can never completely excavate, explore, discover, or discern its reserves. These spiritual assets are beyond your wildest imagination!
Paul is describing something that is already in the hands of all believers, something that legally belongs to them and that they have a right to claim! The word treasure is the Greek word thesauros, a word that describes a place of safekeeping where riches and fortunes are kept.
This wealth is not something we are trying to obtain; it is something we already possess. However, Paul says that this treasure is contained in earthen vessels, a phrase he uses to refer to our human bodies. The phrase earthen vessels comes from the Greek word ostrakinos, a word used to describe small, cheap, and easily broken pottery made of inferior materials. This kind of pottery was weak, fragile, and without value. These cheap dishes were primarily used in the lower-class neighborhoods, purchased by people who couldnt afford to buy better goods. Because the dishes were made of imperfect materials, they usually had defects. Interestingly, as time passed, this word ostrakinos came to represent anything inferior, low-grade, mediocre or shoddy. We get the phrase to ostracize from the same word.
Shoddy, deficient, substandard pottery is exactly the kind of earthen vessels Paul had in mind when he wrote 2 Corinthians 4:7. He used the illustration of these cheaply-made pots to announce the location of the secret chamber where God placed His greatest treasure on planet earth! If you have missed any of this series please check the website: www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
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