Man is Just a Vessel

When the Lord says, "the soul that sins shall surely die" we hear. But then we sit down, muse over the statement, and realize that God has created a boundary in our thoughts, actions, desires, and will. Rather than submit to authority out of love, we ask, "Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice?" Then we cast the thought away, and continue on. But again, the thought comes and shows us just how we could be free with no God to tell us what to do. We may cast it away again, again, and again. But soon, we start thinking, wait a minute, you who are speaking, you are already knowledgeable in this; show me how to be free. At this point, it is done, we are snared and our lovers walk away for us to chase them.

We begin chasing after the high of the conversation, the thrill of the knowledge, we are in love, hardhearted, and chasing after our lovers. Who can stop one who is swallowed up and infatuated with love? We weary ourselves committing iniquity and cannot sleep unless we scheme and do evil. Neither can sleep come unless another stumbles. The words of our mouths become wickedness and deceit and we cease to be wise or do good. Before long, it is no longer we who do it, but the evil that lives in us. We are dead to feeling and thought and God gives us up to uncleanness through the lusts of hearts and we dishonor our bodies between ourselves.

After exchanging the truth of God for a lie, we worship and serve created things rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise for these ease our thoughts. For this reason God gives us over to dishonorable passions and our women exchange natural relations for unnatural ones. Likewise, the men abandon natural relations with women and burn with lust for one another, men committing indecent acts with other men, and receiving in ourselves the due penalty for our error. Furthermore, since we do not see fit to acknowledge God, He gives us up to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done and we become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and hatred, envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. Before long we are prisoners of our passions and a depraved mind.

Like the prodigal son, we think about home while wallowing in the mud and dustbins of wickedness. We think of what life would have been on the other side and by and by we muse over it, and start to think that surely even servants of God are treated better. We start questioning whether it is the will of God that we should be in the state in which we are. Then we decide to give up our sins, but the more we leave them alone, the more they resolve to imprison us further until we find no hope in us to do any good. But, when our sins give us even a window of air, we send out a prayer to the Lord, and weep our hearts out to Him. But our cries seem to be falling on deaf ears. Seeing we have no hope, we try again, again and again until He sends along a servant with the key and solution to our problems. We sit down; we listen to the Gospel, but cast it all away as non-sense and return to our vomits when the window of air closes down.

But in the manifold wisdom and mercy of the Lord, He allows us to grasp the reality that there could be hope and all is not lost. We muse over the statements of his servants with a fixed resolution of doubt concerning them, but we cannot help but wonder, what exists on the other end, how beautiful could it be? Then the Lord comes along in power and glory, lifts off the veil in our hearts and shows us just what it could be. Our hearts leap in joy, but are fearful for His presence is Holy. But we are unnerved, for we have found something else that seems more valuable that our lovers and the highs that we chased. We want Him and we want all of the glory that He comes with. We leap forth, happy that we can now keep the Law of God for in us a new creature has been created. He becomes our darling and our conversations are all about Him. But as time goes, there comes another challenge.

Sin becomes a reality to us, we can see it, spot it and point it out. We desire to be away from it, but since we are in this world, it becomes a challenge for all our lovers are not dead. We see them wherever we go, but are reminded each time of times past and the pleasures we enjoyed. On the other end, we are reminded of how grave it would be to commit sin. By and by, our lovers start hunting us down and we run to the Lord in prayer often, asking Him to keep them at bay. We struggle through, falling often, we study the Bible in detail while memorizing and meditating over verses. We immerse ourselves into His Word, but each time we come across our sins, the appeal is more deadly than before, remember Christ whose temptations were more clear after fasting. Along the way, many others fall away and go back to their sins, but you keep holding on waiting to see what lies on the other end.

As day turn into months and later years, we realize one truth; we are almost where we were before Christ collected is from our sins. We have struggled to do it consciously but are now fed up. Just then the Lord brings along the truth to us, unless it is Him who does it, all our efforts are useless. The truth comes home to us and we comprehend that just as sin drove us to depths that we never desired, the Lord cannot desire less. Just as sin drove us into more iniquity and wickedness, it should be the Lord driving us towards holiness and righteousness for we are to be led by His Spirit in our inner man. Just as sin worked in us, it is the Lord who should be working in us to accomplish the good will of His pleasure. After all the years we have not got it right, but, one thing is sure, we have new grounds upon which to plead to the Lord.

But as we take on the task, we realize that sin killed us before beginning its unhindered operations in us, numbed us to all truth and feeling and took the reigns of our being. The Lord is interested in nothing short of it, we must die to all of sin, and only Christ must live in us, we must decrease as Christ increases in us. A blow again to our pride and despise of authority. We realize that in this life, we have to lose our lives and whichever master we choose, it is no longer we who will be living, but our master. Then we realize the sum of life, that we are just vessels, who could be of value or useless to our masters. We take to our knees, seeking to be crucified with Christ in his death that He many live in us by faith. Death, which we struggled to escape, becomes what we seek in but in faith through the cross of Christ.

(Psalm 36:4, Romans 1, Psalm 81:12)