Devotionals

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Dearly Beloved,
TREASURE IN CLAY JARS
"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 NIV).
Being a problematic church, Paul wrote his two known epistles to the Corinthian church to correct some of the anomalies that existed in the church. One of such anomalies was the erroneous view about the gospel message and the messengers of the gospel. This view is that the gospel, which is the New Covenant, is inferior to the Old Covenant given to Moses, and so, the messengers of the gospel, or the ministers of the New Covenant, were inferior to Moses and the teachers of the Law. However, in this second epistle to the Corinthians, Paul explained the superiority of the gospel to the Law. He considered the gospel message as a treasure kept in jars of clay. Such illustration was familiar to the Corinthians.
The gospel message is indeed a treasure that supersedes any human knowledge or philosophy. God has kept or entrusted the gospel message in “clay jars,” the apostles, now the preachers of the gospel. Clay jars are undoubtedly fragile. As humans, the preachers of the gospel are frail and weak like clay jar but the gospel message is entrusted to them. It was not entrusted to the angels or any other super-humans. God did this to show that spreading of the gospel message is not by human power, knowledge or even experience, but by His all-surpassing power. So, we must not look down on ourselves that we cannot preach the gospel, or depend on our ability or wisdom to do it, but rely wholly on God.
The treasure, the gospel message, has been entrusted unto you to keep it and share it with other people. Are you jealously keeping it and zealously sharing it with other people around you? You do not need any special power or knowledge to do so. What you need is total reliance on the Holy Spirit who is there to teach, guide, remind, and strengthen you as you are keeping and sharing the treasure. No matter the pressure around you, He will see you through. “For this reason we never become discouraged. Even though our physical being is gradually decaying, yet our spiritual being is renewed day after day. And this small and temporary trouble we suffer will bring us a tremendous and eternal glory, much greater than the trouble. For we fix our attention, not on things that are seen, but on things that are unseen. What can be seen lasts only for a time, but what cannot be seen lasts forever” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18 TEV).
In His service,
Bayo Afolaranmi (Pastor).
NB
Hurrah! My new book on Internet ministry is out. To view the cover of the book and read the book review, people’s endorsements of the book, the contents page, and how you can get copies of the book in Nigeria, you can visit the website I created purposely for the promotion of the book: http://ministeringthroughtheinternet.blogspot.com/.
There will not be any formal launching of the book, but you can still identify with this success by contacting me at [email protected]. God bless you!

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