BEAUTY FOR ASHES

Sunday, February 15, 2009

BEING GLASS BOTTLES

“However we possess this precious treasure in frail, human vessels of earth, that the grandeur and exceeding greatness of the power may be shown to be from God and not from ourselves. 2 Corinthians 4:7”


We are often referred to as vessels in the Bible. Another way of thinking of the word vessel today is to think of glass bottles, in particular a glass wine bottle. Although He makes both the wine and the bottle, it’s the wine that is the focus, not the bottle or vessel. As a bottle we are transparent; the wine is seen in us. But, we need to be cleansed and sterilized before being used or we will contaminated the wine that is poured into us and out of us. It’s a good lesson in humility when we realize that with a bottle of wine, the bottle is never what is praised or valued but rather the precious wine that it holds. While the bottle is needed and necessary, it is not the focus or most important thing, but the wine is. And when you are thirsty an empty bottle isn’t much use.

Bottles can easily be broken and dispensed of or refilled and used again and again. Who would go to a restaurant and drink a wine then rave about the bottle that is came in rather than the wine? It’s silly to lift up a person, or a vessel as being wonderful when all the time it’s the wine that we are drinking in from that person, Jesus Christ, or that bottle and He’s the One who deserves all the praise and glory; not the vessel. (I Corinthians 4:6-7; I Corinthians 5:6-7).

There is no room whatsoever for pride in a bottle for we recognize that we are just the container for that precious Wine and that it’s only by the grace and mercy of God that we are where we are today. The Bible says that God gives grace to the humble and the more you recognize God’s grace at work in you life, the more humble you feel and the more grace He gives you and so it becomes a perpetual cycle. If you ever tend towards feeling proud of what God is doing in you or through you, just remind yourself that you are only the bottle or vessel, nothing less, nothing more.

A picture that illustrates this is a baby’s bottle with milk in it. We are the bottles that are being cleansed and sterilized so that we don’t contaminate the milk that is poured into us. The reason a baby’s bottle is used in this illustration, is because we are the ones who feed spiritual milk to others and if our bottle is dirty and unclean, the milk will be tainted and will result in sickly, unhealthy spiritual babes who may even die as a result.

Being purified and prepared spiritually is not something that can be shared with anyone else, it’s something that has to happen for the individual. A Jewish Bridegroom had to take three things to his betrothed: payment or dowry for the Bride (Jesus has paid that with His life), a written contract (the New Covenant from God), and a skin of wine (Holy Spirit) which they would both drink from when the bride to be agreed to marry him. The Bridegroom would then go away and build and prepare a house for them to live in. The Bride was to use this period of preparation for her marriage in learning all she could about her husband and learning how to please Him.

Revelation 22:17