Daily Devotional

In 2000, I joined a church-planting team in Tokyo. For two years, I struggled with a difficult team leader, wanting many times to give up and go home. During this challenging season, I wrestled with what God was doing in our lives and found myself consistently reminded of 2 Corinthians 4 which states "For God, who said, 'Light shall shine out of darkness'—He has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ. 7 Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. 8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed and broken. We are perplexed, but we don't give up and quit. 9 We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going. 10 Through suffering, these bodies of ours constantly share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies."
   
My wife, Kathi, and I could deeply identify with verses 8 and 9 about being pressed on every side. We felt like we had been completely obedient to God’s leading, leaving our home and family even though it was so hard. On top of that, Japanese language study proved to be unbelievably difficult while managing a one-year-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old with no family nearby to support us. It was easy to feel crushed and perplexed.

But the scripture reveals the purpose behind this pressure: treasure. Usually, when we picture a treasure chest, we think of an old, rusty box where only the jewels and money inside hold value. But here we see truly valuable treasure within us as "the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus". This glory encompasses all of God’s beauty, majesty, and awesome power. When we truly see the Creator God for who He is and what He has done, we adore Him. Naturally, we do not adore Him because our hearts are dark with sin and selfishness; nevertheless, God shines His light into our hearts and causes us to love Him. This treasure is found entirely in the person of Jesus, and when we read about Him in the Word, we see just how precious and sweet He is.

Elsewhere, this treasure is compared to a precious ointment. Ointment was a rare, expensive kind of perfume rubbed over the body to make a person feel and smell better. The Scripture implies that the glory of Jesus is like a sweet-smelling ointment, highly valuable because it is so rare—there is only one Savior, and His blood cleanses us from all our sins.

Verse 7 explains that God has chosen to put this amazingly precious treasure into "clay jars," or what other translations call "earthen vessels." Clay pots are typically cheap, common, easily broken, and unimportant containers; it is solely what is inside them—whether plain water or expensive perfume—that matters. Here, Paul is telling us that our bodies contain the grace and power of God, which is exactly what gives them infinite value. God did not choose to put His fragrance into a beautiful flask or entrust it to angels; instead, He put it into fragile, sinful, and weak people like you and me. Because there are no impressive credentials necessary to be a clay pot, every single one of us qualifies.

Why did God choose to use clay jars? So that He alone receives the glory, as verse 7 notes: "so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us." God's chosen method for spreading the precious treasure of His fragrance is to crack the pot. When the pot has a crack in it, the sweet fragrance of His grace oozes out.

He uses the pressures of life—disappointment, sickness, and heartache—to reveal whether the ointment inside is truly from Him. When you feel squeezed by life and start to explode at your kids or other drivers on the road, it forces the question: Am I filled with myself, or am I filled with Him? If I am filled with Him, then when I break, He is the one who leaks out. His glory can handle any situation, but too often our jars are full of ourselves instead of His Spirit.

Looking back at our time in Japan, I have to admit that a lot of "me" squeezed out during that high-pressure period. I felt frustration that my team leader was so difficult, envy when I saw other missionaries accomplishing fruitful ministry, disappointment when my own ideas failed, and a distinct lack of faith when our finances got very tight. Yet, as I allowed Him to leak out of me, I witnessed incredible things—such as seeing Kimiko’s and Masanori’s lives completely changed. God faithfully gave me the grace to keep working under a difficult leader, and we ultimately saw God’s glory shine beautifully through us as cracked pots, as well as through each disciple we made.

New International Version (NIV)
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