Joni And Friends Devotional for 20th August 2023
Joni and Friends Devotional for 20th August 2023 Sunday Message. As you study today’s devotional, remember this; “Work hard so you can present yourself to God and receive his approval. Be a good worker, one who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly explains the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15 (NLT)
TOPIC: Jars and Boxes
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” – 2 Corinthians 4:7
Joni And Friends Devotional for 20th August 2023 MESSAGE
Author Robert Jewitt imagines a dialogue between the apostle Paul and our popular culture. He talks about 2 Corinthians 4, where Paul compares our earthly bodies to common earthenware jars. Back in the first century, these pots were just ordinary containers. Nothing special, nothing spectacular. After all, you had to carry your belongings in something, and back then, it was a clay pot.
What is it in our culture, the author asks, that would carry the same common insignificance? How about a cardboard box? Our bodies, to paraphrase 2 Corinthians, are like the box your new shoes came in. Like the box they use at the department store to wrap your new sweater. But within that box, as with Paul’s jars of clay, we hold a priceless treasure.
Several years ago, my own dear mother, Lindy Eareckson, left this earth for heaven. In that moment, she had no more need of the box that had wrapped her life for eighty-seven years. It was empty, with worn-out corners, bends and wrinkles. And yet… it had been the vessel in which the treasure of the Spirit of Christ had dwelt. And he shone all the more brightly through the edges and thin places of that box as it began to collapse with age.
He was radiant in her, shining mightily, as she served our family, as she stuck by my side all the years I was in the hospital, and as she gave, gave, and gave. But now, praise God, the treasure is safely home.
Just think, the circumstances that crush you, wear you down, or stretch you at the seams are the very forces that release God’s beautiful light, pouring out from within you.
Who would place treasure in a cardboard box? How amazing, Lord, to think that you would entrust the very wealth of heaven into a common container like me. Shine brightly, I pray, through every gap, joint, seam and crevice!
Thank you for reading Joni And Friends Devotional for 20th August 2023
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