I've been drawn to this thought recently, that these earthly vessels we live in can be flesh pots or spirit pots, it's what we're feeding on.

Take Esau for example, who chose to please the fleshly appetite selling his inheritance for a ‘bowl of stew', or the children of Israel having been freed from the grip of the enemy who started to complain bitterly, looking at what they didn't have and remembering the ‘pots of flesh'. At that time they were failing to see God's mighty deliverance of them and the promise of their inheritance.

I started to see just how much we can be like this at times, being consumed with the things of this world, being amazingly unaware of the divine plan and purposes of God. Give the flesh an inch and it will always take a mile! (that brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "pinching an inch"!.

I've also begun to realise there's really not a lot of point in asking for cleansing of the flesh, for this sin or that, because the flesh has got to die anyway, we ought to just stop feeding it, walking in it and giving it any room. Our repentance should be for refusing to yield to the spirit of God. I'm convinced the answer to spiritual growth and walking after the spirit is humbling ourselves and yielding to the Spirit of God. It will cost us some things but God is gentle with us and knows when we are ready to move on.

My morning prayer is now "Lord I'm emptying out this fleshpot, please pour in your Spirit so that He has full control today and drives this vessel into your perfect will".

Thank God it is the content of the vessel that defines it and "greater is He that liveth in me than He that is in the world".

It's a daily walk, and some days may be harder going than others, but the reward is Jesus himself and gaining the characteristics of this abiding Christ. The bible says that if we have the things of the Spirit on our minds ‘we will have life and peace', we will please God, and our very mortal bodies will be quickened through Christ dwelling in us. (Romans 8).  This is how we will fulfil the calling in Isaiah 61, how we'll hear what the Spirit is saying to the church, how we'll be being aware of His actions, having discernment and all the other wonderful gifts of the Spirit. It's life abundant, who could want more than that?

Lesley Elliott Cleveden