Is IT In You?

"If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That's to prevent anyone from confusing God's incomparable power with us. As it is, there's not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we are not much to look at." (2 Corinthians 4:7-8, The Message)

I've always loved the idea that God has placed his marvelous Good News in ordinary clay jars. Paul uses this term to describe not only himself, but us! We are those jars. Simple, fragile, stained, cracked, well-worn and well-used jars. Not that the message is better suited for such containers, or that it makes the container any better, rather so that the message could be seen for what it really is!

The message of Christ doesn't make us perfect, even if it does promise us perfection.

The point is (by Paul) there is something about our ordinary-ness that God wants to use. It's not about being perfect as a Christian. It's not about knowing theology or having the ability to defend the faith. It's about being who we are, altered by what we carry inside us. What shines, then, is not our lives but Christ's life that lives in us.

I'm not always proud of my actions or my words sometimes. I'm definitely not perfect. But I do carry something precious that I want everyone to see in me, Jesus Christ.

So, don't look at me, look inside of me. Look at what's motivating me, what makes me tick and my eyes light up. It's Jesus, plain and simple...

...in a plain and simple container (with a few blemishes and cracks).

It's in you, too!

Peace ><>
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