Life as a vessel

Imagine your mind as being a big jar. Whatever you think you are putting into the jar. Whatever you forget you are taking out of that jar. If one thought dominates all other thoughts, than that thought, maybe it is tomorrow, maybe something else, whatever it is, it is filling up your jar. For a lot of us this jar is going to be lined with goo and steeping in sin, but thankfully God offers us a way to clean it out. Philippians 4:8 says: “Finally brethren, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is just, whatever is lovely, whatever is pure, whatever is of good repute, let your mind dwell on these things.”

Glen Durham, a pastor, said once: “Picture in your mind a pink elephant. Picture the elephant's pink trunk and it's pink wrinkly legs, and the big pink floppy ears, and even picture the pink tusks, just close your eyes and think hard about a pink elephant drinking water. Now stop thinking about the pink elephant. It's impossible, isn't it? That's because to take something out of your mind you have to start thinking about something else and fill your mind with that. Some people take pleasure in scooping massive amounts of sinful thinking into their minds, but we as Christians are called to be set apart from the world, in it but not of it, and keep our lives full of what is right. (Colo. 3:8) But to do this we first have to reach in and pull out the sin. A sixteen-ounce jar cant hold sixteen ounces of good and sixteen ounces of bad at the same time. You've got do do a hard thing and scrub out the jar. (Heb. 12:1)

There is a vacuum in your jar that only Jesus can fill. You can try to put other stuff in there but they just won't satisfy that empty space. Think about food. Humans need food to survive. At the end of the day, after working hard, you need to eat something, but not just anything. Junk food tastes good for a while, but leaves you hungry soon after. Good food on the other hand, will strengthen you in the long run and keep you healthy. The people in John chapter six saw Jesus feed five thousand of them without lack. When they followed Him to the other side of the sea He told them:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”
Let us do the same, and fill our lives with that which endures to everlasting life!

But now, let's ask a few questions:

1. What do you find yourself thinking about most of the time?
2. How much scripture have you memorized?
3. Of all the books you read, how many of them are Christian?
4. Out of all the time you spend reading, how much of that time do you spend reading the bible?
5. What would you do with a thousand dollars? No really.
6. What thought worrys you the most?
7. Again, what do you think about most?