Keep the Lantern Clean - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2024

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels.
2 Corinthians 4:7

Keep the Lantern Clean
The thing that characterizes Christianity is the knowledge of the unveiled glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and "if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost" (4:3). There is nothing to come but Christ coming in judgment to the world. Then the trials and afflictions of the present time are all connected with the earthen vessel—its weakness. Even if an apostle, one can only be kept, day by day, by the power of God.

The vessel is one thing, the treasure is another. The vessel must be nothing if the treasure there is to shine out. The old man is judged and crucified with Christ; I have to look at myself as a dead man. I may light up a lantern, but if the glass be not kept perfectly clean, the light will not shine out. I have a glorified Christ in my soul, and if my flesh rules me, that is not the treasure shining out; I must ever reckon myself as dead.

A Christian stands as a new man in God's sight. To reckon myself dead is a privilege for myself, and a necessity for my testimony, to put it simply. Suppose a mother heard her son was half-killed, would she stop on her way to him to look at the shops? So, if a Christian is full of Christ, he will not be distracted by anything of the world. Where the earthen vessel is right, the light will shine out. There must be no rest for the flesh; nothing but sorrows and trials—always "delivered unto death," and "bearing about in the body the dying" (4:11, 10).

The Lord put the apostle through all sorts of circumstances. If anything of the flesh sprang up, the red-hot iron must be put to it, to destroy the sprouts; death wrought in him, that nothing but the life of Christ might appear.

J. N. Darby