BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

Notice that Paul didn’t tell Timothy, “If you cry long enough God will purge you.” No, he said, “Purge yourself.” To reach our wealthy place, or high calling, in God and walk in all the good works He ordained for us before the foundation of the world, there is some purging we will have to do. Taking this principle a step further and applying it to his own ministry, Paul wrote: “Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness [manipulating people to do what we want them to do], nor handling the word of God deceitfully...” (2 Corinthians 4:1-2). The bottom line is, the only way to walk in excellence in any area of life is for us to be brutally honest with God, brutally honest with ourselves and then brutally honest with others. Now, I’m sure you can imagine that our flesh won’t like this part of the process. But that’s the only thing that makes purging ourselves difficult, because it’s not difficult to do when we follow The WORD of God and do it in the power of the Holy Spirit. Actually, it’s when we try to purge ourselves by the strength of our flesh and work it out with our minds that it doesn’t work, and it seems like a tough road to take. We are reminded, however, that God’s WORD is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path (Psalm 119:105). We don’t have to stumble around in the dark when God has given us His WORD. All we have to do is turn it on. The Apostle Peter said it like this: “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19). Revelation from God and revelation from His WORD come up like a little light in a very dark place. Have you ever stayed in a hotel, and when you got out of the bed in the middle of the night, you nearly hurt yourself stumbling around in the dark? Well, in an unfamiliar room like that, it’s smart to give your eyes a couple of minutes to adjust to the dark, then look for that little sliver of light that shines in underneath the hallway door, or around the curtains on an outside window. Once you locate even the tiniest bit of light, you can orient yourself to the room making it easier—and safer—to find a light switch. In the same way, no matter how dark or unfamiliar a situation may seem to you, God’s WORD is at hand. It’s always available. It will talk to you and guide you—but only if you let it. Excellence Takes Commitment The decision to become a vessel of honor and live a life of excellence and abundance in God is a decision to live by The WORD of God. In other words, we have to commit to putting God’s WORD first place in our lives. Whatever The WORD says, we will do, even when it means making adjustments in our words, our actions or our thinking. If we want to be like Daniel and other men and women of excellence, we must allow ourselves to be taught, trained and corrected by God. We must walk in the love of God. We must walk in the faith of God. We must be vessels of honor unto God, prepared and able to be used by Him. Once we make the decision to live in excellence, to purge ourselves of our old fleshly ways and to live by The WORD of God, we open the door to the road of our wealthy place. Paul described the end result of this life of excellence, when he wrote: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus [the Anointed One, and in the face of His Anointing]” (2 Corinthians 4:6). When did God shine in our hearts to give us that light of the knowledge of His glory? Again, it was before the foundation of the world. The glory of God is the Anointing of God. And it was this same glory that raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 6:4). So having been given the light of the knowledge of God’s glory—that is, His Anointing—we now have a working knowledge of it available to us. That means, we have a working knowledge of His WORD. We have a working knowledge of His love. We have a working knowledge of His faith. We have a working knowledge of His honor. We have direct access to the knowledge of how the entire kingdom of God works. Paul went on to say in 2 Corinthians 4, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (verse 7). The treasure that you and I have is this knowledge of the glory of God. And, yes, we have it in earthen vessels. But, even though we may have started out as a bunch of mud pots, God is treating us as vessels of honor. He is treating us as vessels of His glory. As far as He is concerned, we are of the purest gold. Why? Because we’re allowing His WORD to strip away all the old flesh, all the old soulish parts of us, all the old waste. Meanwhile, God sees us as He did before the foundation of the world. He sees us as vessels of honor on the pathway to our wealthy place in Him. Even before the foundation of the universe, God made every man and woman who would ever be born into this earth, wealthy beyond their wildest dreams and imaginations. He did that by creating a place of abundance—a place of love, a place of faith, a place of honor, a place of His WORD. My friend, God is calling us to that place in Him, today. He is calling us up into His excellence. V BVOV : 19

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