A Vessel of Heavenly Light

Who but God could have accomplished all that Paul carried out in the face of habitual and serious opposition, with the added difficulty of a thorn in the flesh? But the vessel must be broken in order to have the effectual shining forth of the heavenly testimony. The allusion is doubtless to Gideon's lamps and pitchers. The lamps were placed within the pitchers, and the pitchers had to be smashed (Judg. 7). Consequently, God brought power out of weakness. "The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." 1 Cor. 1:25.
The breaking process described is very touching. "Troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." 2 Cor. 4:8-10. What a precious servant of Christ! He walked with scarcely a falter a path of unparalleled trial and suffering for the sake of Christ, filling up that which was behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for His body's sake, the Church. He met nothing but reproach and loss on every hand.
This is not, however, Christ the perfect Servant. But comparing ourselves with Paul, how far short we come! Is there not a tendency with us to seek our own and not the things of Jesus Christ? Are we not prone to seek a comfortable pathway in our service, and to shun reproach and suffering? Is there not a danger of flesh and the world proving a snare to our hearts? Let us search ourselves closely in the light of the Divine Presence.