SERMONS#4 – ARE YOU ORIGINAL OR DECEPTIVE CONTAINERS? Ndumanene Devlin Silungwe ©2014 Friends, I bet you have observed how in Malawi, it is common to attend a workshop or a gathering where bottled water is served – and how you see some people scrambling for the empty bottles – either to carry them home, or sell to get some quick backs. Actually, they are not recycling these bottles back to Southern Bottlers (SOBO) or any particular water bottle company; rather, they sell these bottles to entrepreneurs in the booming SWEET BREW drink CALLED Thobwa/ Chindongwa/Mthibwi!! These are innovative minds now in town: “if you cannot bring the town to the village to quench on Thobwa, bring the village to town instead” – and true to their thinking, they have hit a jackpot. However, one question that dominates my mind is the DECEPTION of the bottles conspicuously marked: “SOBO QUENCH” or indeed other such bottled-water names – when the content is CONTRADICTORY. What if a tourist visiting Malawi for the first time bought this DECEPTIVE product in a GENUINE/ORIGINAL bottle? Would they not go home believing they had taken SOBO QUENCH – by way of the LABEL? This is where the message of Paul in his first communication to the Christian at Corinth in Section 3: 16-17 makes sense; he writes to the Corinthians, “Do you not know that you are the temple (CONTAINERS) of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple (CONTAINER) of God, God will destroy him. For the temple (CONTAINER) of God is holy, which temple (CONTAINER) you are”. Let us imagine that this bottle of SOBO is us; it may even be a bottle of Fanta, Coca-Cola, cooking oil etc for illustration purposes. Friends, you and I are the temples (containers) being referred by Paul here. The question then is, are our bodies, our spirits and souls filled with the original contents, purpose, energies, destinies for which we were created? Or are we going about masquerading as containers of SOBO QUENCH when in truth and fact we have THOBWA inside us? Suffice to say that the entrepreneurs of THOBWA do replace one GOOD product with another GOOD one – it is edifying; in that wherein there was LOVE, now there is KINDNESS and may be another day there is FORGIVENESS etc. For this reason therefore, spiritually, it is NOT THE BOTTLE per se that is BAD but the CONTENTS in the bottle. This explains why the bottle is a hot commodity because it gets to be used RIGHTLY or WRONGLY according to the interests of the one who has control over it. We are BASICALLY GOOD containers by nature AND with freewill to fill ourselves with GOOD or BAD CONTENT. One thing is clear though, we were made to be containers of LOVE and CARE but we HATE and ABANDON instead; we were made to be containers of JUSTICE but we perpetrate INJUSTICE instead; we were made to be containers of HAPPINESS but face SADNESS and DEPRESSION instead; we were made to have DOMINION over the earth but we have become the SLAVES of the earth – the list is endless. Luckily, there is a way out when the contents in the containers called “US” have become a burden. God understands that the CONTAINER is GOOD; the CONTENTS in the container are His going concern. Just like a homemaker who after finishing using the cooking pot does not throw it because of its sootiness, but cleans it for another day, so does God. Just like a mother does not throw away the washing basin because it was soiled by baby pooh napkins, but cleans it for another day, so does God. Believe it or not, He actually has this to say on 1Peter 5:7, “Cast ALL your anxiety on him because he cares for you”; and on Ezekiel. 36: 25-27, He has this to say, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws”. Friends, if this is not beautiful, then I do not know what beautiful is! Have a Blessed Day! ENDS COPY RIGHT ©2014
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 12:18:33 +0000
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