Write From My Heart
August 8, 2020
Our Source of Strength
2 Corinthians 4:7-9 (NLT)
We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are
like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that
our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side
by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.
We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are
not destroyed.
Most of us are quick
to acknowledge that God is our source of strength. Yet the reality is that all
too often we still try to manage on our own, then question when it doesn’t
work. The plain and simple truth is that without God our power is only
temporary, and quite ineffective for long-term peace. Perhaps that’s why I like
this analogy Paul writes to the Corinthians. Try to grasp the picture in your
mind:
You have the light of
Christ in your heart. You are a shining light! Yet, physically, you are just a
human vessel—basically the same ingredients as that of clay. In many ways you,
we, are fragile. Some of us may be fragile with our thoughts and mental
acuities; memory doesn’t work the way we wish it would. Some of us may be
fragile in our emotional lives; we never seem to get a break from the emotional
roller coaster in life. Others may be fragile physically with the complications
of health or aging; there are too many examples to list them all.
In spite of all these
distressing and perplexing complications we call “life,” you STILL have the
light of Christ in your heart, and you STILL shine because God is the source of
your power and strength. We can’t avoid the complications in life, and we never
will until he returns. But we can still shine!
