Don't Trade Milk for Water

Isaiah 51:1 "Ho, everyone that thirsteth,come ye to the waters,and he that hath no money;come ye, buy and, eat yea,come, buy wine and milk without money and without price"

In the bible milk is referred to as the beginning stages of learning about the word God.  Hebrews 5:13 " For everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness : for he is a babe."  Milk nourishes the body and helps it to grow.  The more you drink the more you grow.   1 Peter 2:2 " As newborn babes,desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby".  Infants thrive on milk because it is essentially the only thing they can digest.  Once an infant gets older food is given in stages.  This is equivalent to how we should be as we learn more and more about His word.  Learning the word of the Lord is a growing process and we will mature the more we yearn for the word.  The word of the Lord will also strengthen us if we are weak.  Isaiah 40:31 " The spiritual milk of the word is an excellent restorative for a consumptive,wasted Christian: "But they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength."
In the bible water is the first mention of life, and this life comes from water.  Genesis 1:20  "And God said,Let the waters flow abundantley the moving creature that hath life,and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of the heaven."  Water is essentially the major component of anything that physically contains liquid. This of course includes milk.  Without water milk would utimately dry and of no substance.   Without water we would die.  In Genesis 2 the perfect conditions of the Garden of Eden are watered by a river.  Without water the garden would have died along with the plants,animals and human beings.  The river in a sense is dipicted as the life that Christ gives His children through the Spirit of God.
So the phrase "Don't trade milk for  water" actually means that in order to understand the word of God we can't drink the milk if we have not been born (again).  John 3:5  "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God."  In this verse a water birth (physical) comes before the Spirit birth (spiritual).  The realistic view of this can be compared to a woman in the natural can't give birth until her water breaks.  We cannot be spiritually reborn until we have naturally been born.  You have to recieve the Lord God as your personal Lord and savior in order for Him to work his miraculous wonders in and through you.  1 John 5:12 " He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son of God hath no life".   Without water there is no life:  Without the Lord Jesus Christ there is no eternal life.

The Clay Pot

 Jeremiah 18:4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

A few weeks back my daughter came home with a list of things in which she could do for a class project.  The class project was to create your own artifact correlating to what they had been learning about.  My daughter decides on making a clay pot.   My daughter is the creative type so she used a simple mixture from right out of the cupboard to make the clay.  She shaped it into a pot and sat it up on a shelf to dry for a few days.  She then pulled out her paint and painted it a brown and put some kind of design on it.   The only thing I thought was missing was the gloss that most clay pots have when you buy them.  I myself was doubtful that she wouldn’t  get a good grade on it just because of that cause I had an inkling that some other students project  was going to look nice and glossy like it had either been made a pottery place or their parents had a big influence on the project.  By chance parent teacher conference happened to be that week and I got to see all the other kids’ projects.  I myself was impressed with some of the pottery I seen at glance but deep in my heart all I could think was that these children’s   parents had helped them and not given their child a chance to show their own personal creativity.  When I got to my daughters pot it was all crumbled in pieces.  I felt awful but the teacher reassured me that the reason that it was in pieces was because all the children had been playing with it. Why you might ask? Because they were all interested on how she made the clay all by herself.   My daughter got an A on her project.  Her teacher said that it was creative and knew that she actually made it herself.  

In Jeremiah 18:1-6 God tells Jeremiah to go down to the potter’s house. Once he got to the potters house he observed the potter making a clay pot that fell apart in his hand so he begins to reshape it. As Jeremiah is watching God spoke to him telling Jeremiah  as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand.   Only God can shape and reshape us.   We are the clay and He is the Potter.  He is the one who created us and can mold us.  It doesn’t matter if we are broken in spirit because only He can put us back together.  Sometimes God breaks us down to build us up into something bigger and better

Treasure

Knowledge is the treasure of a wise man.-William Penn


Matthew 6:21 states:  "For where your treasure is,there will your heart also be".  Treasure is defined as accumulated wealth, anything greatly valued, or to prize and to put away for future use.  When we treasure something it is usually something that we put in high regard.  What is it that we are to treasure? Isaiah 33:6 states: "And there shall be stability in your times, an abundance of salvation,wisdom,and knowledge; the reverent fear and worship of the Lord is your treasure and His."
What are we treasuring in our lives? For most of us it is money and material possessions. We are in a sense hoarding possessions and we don't realize it.  Keeping our treasures to ourselves cannot and will not save our lives. Job 20:20-29(MSG):"Such God-denying people are never content with what they have or who they are; their greed drives them relentlessly.  They plunder everything but they can't hold on to any of it.  Just when they think they have it all,disaster strikes;they're served up a plate full of misery.  When they've filled their bellies with that, God gives them a taste of his anger,and they get to chew on that for a while.  As they run for their lives from one disaster,they run smack into another.  They're knocked around from pillar to post,beaten within an inch of their lives.  They're trapped in a house of horrors,and see their loot disappear down a black hole.  Their lives a total loss-not a penny to their name,not so much as a bean.  God will strip them of their sin-soaked clothes and hang their dirty laundry out for all to see.  Life is a complete wipe out for them,nothing surviving God's wrath. There!That's God's blueprint for the wicked-what they have to look forward too."
Matthew 6:19 states: "Do not gather and heap up and store up for yourselves treasures on earth,where moth,rust and worm consume and destroy,and where thieves break through and steal."  This shows us how vain it is to store up treasures and what the consequences are when we store up treasures.
Matthew 13:44 states: "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in field. When a man found it,he hid it again,and then in his joy,went and sold all he had and brought that field."Treasure is a precious possession. We attempt as believers in Christ to obtain eternal life. Are treasures worth more than eternal life? Absolutely not. The things that we treasure here on earth are of no use in heaven. What we all need to realize is that the ultimate treasure is eternal life and not our material possessions.  What you treasure here on earth should be more of a mindset and not earthly possessions.