Vessels of Gold
“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19
This is one of the things that God has been teaching me and showing me over the last year. For a long time, I was working at a certain job and getting a fairly good wage, and that was my security and my income, and I depended on it to meet my needs. Then I left that job, and now I have to learn to walk by faith, and believe that God is able to meet my needs.
This has been an incredibly hard transition, and one that I am not done with, but I am getting there. He showed me that there comes a point when you need to acknowlege that everything that you have comes from Him. Even your gifts and your talents and abilities come from Him. But if we are depending on the gifts and abilities that we have, and not on Him, then we are doing it in our own strength.
Here in America we are taught to be independent, and self-reliant, but as a Christian, we need to lay down our self, and depend and lean on God. Is our job our source, or is God our source? Is He able to meet our needs or not? I am not saying that a job is a bad thing. But it is not our source.
What is the definition of a believer? In the Amplified Bible, where it has the word “believe” it has in parenthesis “trusts, clings to, relies on”. So are we “trusting in, clinging to, and relying on” Him?
Part of this is a death experience… In which we put to death daily anything that would take the place of God. We consecrate ourselves to Him and die to ourself. We become less and less, and He becomes more and more. Until it becomes ALL of HIM and NONE of US. For He is not going to share His place in your heart with anything or anyone.
As I have studied some of the great preachers and teachers of the past… Those that God has used mightily, like John G. Lake, Smith Wigglesworth, Reese Howells and many, many others… It seems that each one of these men had to come to that place where they laid down their own lives piece by piece, and died a death to themselves, and allowed God to have first place and full reign in their lives. When they came to that point and died to themself, then God was able to move through them and use them for His glory.
But it is a conscious choice that we make, and it isn’t something that we do once and that is it. It is a continual thing, of consecration and dedication to the Lord. And it is a process. Each one of us has different areas that we need to lay down, and we all know what they are. I want to live a life worthy of the Lord, so that when I see him, he will tell me “well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
I want to be a clean vessel, holy and sanctified and a vessel of honor for the Glory to flow through. Because there is a time coming when the Glory will flow. And it will not be just like a river as some say… It will be like a tidal wave. amen???