Sunday Afternoon Tea - We have this treasure!

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,

that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

2nd Corinthians 4:7 KJV

There are times I get a Bible verse in my mind and it stays there all week, as if a seed was planted and left to germinate into a full beautiful flower.  When that happens, I know God is trying to get my attention.  So when the above section of a Bible verse kept coming to mind, what it reminded me was... although we are "earthen vessels"... jars of clay in the NIV... we contain great Treasure. 

As a long time thrift store aficionado, I know that one man's trash is another man's treasure.  I wanted to throw in a little show and tell here to explain what I'm talking about.  I bought the vintage Friendly Village sugar bowl at Goodwill for around 99 cents and found the (believe it or not) fake succulents in a flower pot on clearance at Meijers for $2.00.

I suppose the reason the sugar bowl was on the shelves was because it was without a lid.  With a lid, a vintage sugar bowl is worth a lot more than 99 cents.  When I saw it on the shelf, it went immediately into my cart because I could imagine it with a small flower or succulent in it. 

As it happened... and I believe most of my wonderful finds are God engineered... I went to Meijers the same day and found the fake succulents on the clearance table.  I love it when that happens. It now sits on a shelf on the breakfront (hutch) in the Living Room, among other brown transferware treasures.

What was once discarded and devalued was now once again a treasure.  At least in my home where it added a touch of Beauty.  I do not believe it was an accident that this happened during the same week God had placed "treasure in earthly vessels" on my heart.

To be honest, I felt like an earthly vessel, a jar made of clay this week.  The weather, as has happened so often the last few years, was unstable even for the Midwest in April.  My head has felt the pressure of these highs and lows and rain and snow, etc. My blood sugar was too low one day and too  high another day and honestly... I couldn't think of the reasons why either happened.

It is easy as we get older or have an illness or are getting over childbirth or we just have the flu to feel as if our jar of clay is dry and perhaps a crack is starting to show here and there.  But God reminds us that He knows "we are but dust" and not only that but we have a TREASURE within us... God Himself.

We are now the temple of God, His tabernacle.  I don't think we in the West quite understand how remarkable that was when Jesus stated this Truth.  Remember the Beauty of the Tabernacle and the glory of the Temple?  When the Holy of Holies was a place where the uninvited would drop dead?

Now you are telling us this Treasure lives within us?  The Holy Spirit of God.  Do you ever stop and think of that?  What one could not touch because of His Presence now lives in you and in me if we have accepted Christ as Savior and asked Him to forgive us our sins?

We are told the plan was there before the foundation of the world.  That the Son of God would be born and live and die and then be raised from the dead... as the sacrificial lamb of Passover.  The Lamb who takes upon Himself the sin that came on the world in Eden and who took back the Keys of Kingdom!

Did you ever stop and think what Eternity must be like, how wonderful and amazing it will be, if it were so important to the Father that He planned this before the foundation of the world?  We are that important?

God likes to take those people that have been cast aside, those who would definitely be on a shelf in a thrift shop if there were such a thing for humanity... and fill them with Treasure.  The world may have discounted us and placed us on the clearance aisle as damaged but not Him! 

He filled us with the Treasure of Himself and made this jar of clay into a beautiful priceless piece of porcelain.  The One who created all things is also in the business of recreating that which has been broken and crushed. 

Today is Palm Sunday and we are in the midst of Holy Week.  We will remember on Friday that Sunday is coming because we know that it did!  If you feel like it has been Friday for a very long time without seeing a Resurrection, don't give up.  It will happen.  In the meantime, we have this Treasure in earthly vessels...

Scripture taken from 2 Corinthians 4... here (NIV).