To Encourage You

2 Corinthians 4:7 “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”

When the glory of God is manifested in the life of a person, it is radically different from the glory of man.  When we think of the glory, i.e., the greatness, of a person, we so often look to that person’s beauty, physical attributes, or mental acumen.  People fawn over the actors and actresses of Hollywood as well as the beautiful or handsome models we see plastered on billboards or in magazines.  Young people want to be like them.  They want to look like them by wearing the same hairstyles or clothes.  Outward beauty is held up as a great virtue.  Then there are the great athletes of this world. We call them superstars, for they shine above the rest of us by their wonderful feats of strength, agility, and speed.  We praise talented singers, great composers, famous authors, inventors, and engineers – gifted people who we look up to as the high achievers of this world.  It is these people that are so often the objects of conversation as they receive our accolades either privately or in award ceremonies of one type or another. 

But what about the glory of God, the thing that the verse above is pointing to?  The verse talks about it as being a “treasure in jars of clay.” This “treasure” is described in the previous verse as “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”  God has placed this glory within the heart of every believer.  So how does anyone else ever see it?  Well, we are told that it’s not in the strength and beauty of the human body, but in its weakness, for that’s what the term “jars of clay” is referring to.  Clay is brittle. It’s weak.  If there is a light hidden within a clay jar, the only way anyone will see it is if the clay is broken in some way.  And that’s the point.  It is in our weakness that the glory of God is manifest.  As trials or hardship afflict us, our reaction as believers should be so much different than that of others who don’t have this glory within them. Paul describes it this way: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (2 Corinthians 4:8-11). 

Thus, we are given one of the great secrets underlying the believer’s suffering.  You see, it is rarely when we are on top of the world that God’s glory is seen in us. In our successes and our strengths, when things are going well for us, what people so often see is just that – us.  However, when things are difficult, when we are tried, when we are weak, it is then that the hidden glory of God that dwells within our “jars of clay” can shine, for God’s glory is seen most clearly in our weakness, rather than in our strength.  So often we see it in the life of the disabled, the quite strength demonstrated in the face of heartache, or in glorious words of praise to our God in the face of pain.   

May God help us to remember these things in our times of trial, “so we do not lose heart. (For) Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).  May it be God’s glory that is seen in us as we live this life “in jars of clay.”