I just attended the funeral of the father of a beloved brother in Christ.  Person after person gave testimony to the disciplined, faithful, generous, and fruitful life of this octogenarian who had passed on to glory. The preacher in the memorial service remarked that the testimonials spoken about him conjectured up a picture of the deceased being a vessel of honour. Taking his cue from II Tim 2:20-21, he spoke about being a vessel of honour. He challenged everyone present to live as vessels of honour, just like the saint of God we were doing the memorial for!

In his letter to his beloved protégé Timothy, just before his departure, Apostle Paul writes to him about what would qualify him to be a vessel of honour. These instructions are: Make every effort to present yourself before God as a proven worker who does not need to be ashamed, teaching the message of truth accurately. But avoid profane chatter, because those occupied with it will stray further and further into ungodliness, and their message will spread its infection like gangrene. The Apostle further writes in chap 2 of II Timothy, v21: So if someone cleanses himself of such behaviour, he will be a vessel for honourable use, set apart, useful for the Master, prepared for every good work. The essence of being a vessel worthy of the Master’s use lies in cleansing ourselves from what doesn’t please Him. It is getting rid of that which would hinder us from being holy, and prepared for every good work.

When King Ahasuerus was looking for a replacement to Queen Vashti after he put her away, all the beautiful maidens were gathered from his kingdom. They were first given treatments for a year for purification and beauty. The book of Esther notes: Before a young woman’s turn came to go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. No woman could come before the king unless and until she was purified and groomed for him. According to commentaries, the one year period ensured that she was fully pure, and not with child.

Myrrh was highly esteemed, both for its scent and for its purifying power, by the ancients, and Pliny, lib. 13, cap. 1, notes that oil of myrrh was used, not only on account of its fragrance, but to make the skin soft and smooth, and to clear it from all manner of scurf; and the sweet odors were necessary, in those hot countries, to take away all ill scents, and, as some think, to enliven and invigorate the constitution. The commentary by Mathew and Poole says that oil of myrrh was useful, both for making the skin exactly clean and smooth and solid, as well as for giving strength and rigor to the body. Perfumes and cosmetics were necessary because the bodies of men and women in those hot countries did of themselves yield very ill scents, if not corrected and qualified by art. Apart from such bodily preparations, the maidens would have been taught court etiquette and protocol, manners and customs of the palace, behavior and deportment befitting a queen. To be the consort of an earthly king and share his throne, especially one who was powerful and fit enough to be called Emperor, and one who ruled a vast kingdom, needed a vast amount of preparation. Isn’t it to be expected that to be used of God Almighty what amount of preparation and cleansing will be needed!

Nobody likes to eat from an unclean or soiled or unwashed plate even if the best food is served in them. A cleanness and a cleansing are needed to be a vessel worthy of use, set apart for His use, and for Him to use. To be a vessel of honour, ready for every good work, we need cleansing in our inward parts. To be a useful vessel in the hands of God, it’s not sufficient to be cleansed just on the outside, to be clean just in the area of our habits and outward mien. God looks at the heart not at the actions, and not just at our behavior, but who we are at the core of our being. He weighs our thoughts and intentions that lie deep within and sifts them as wheat. He notes our motivations and intentions, our aspirations and motives, and that’s where reality lies. We can camouflage and hoodwink people, but when we stand in the burning light of His Presence, all will be transparent to his eyes.

To be pleasing to Him, and to be in tune with Him, more and more we need to have the mind of Christ, for He alone knows God. The more we know Christ, allowing Him to cleanse and transform us, the more we will be able to identify what pleases God, and what is aligned to His purposes and plans. The key then is to undergo, as Esther did, a treatment of purification and beautification set for us by the Holy Spirit, who is the One entrusted with preparing Christ’s Bride. For sure these treatments are not convenient or comfortable since they peel away the accumulated dust and tan of the years. Yet, as the book of Hebrews says “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” If Esther had not submitted to beauty regime and regulations prescribed for her, she could never have found favor in the eyes of the King, nor become Queen. If she hadn’t been chosen as the Royal Consort, she couldn’t have saved her people from the edict of the king that would have destroyed her people.

So also, as we prepare ourselves for His use, allow ourselves to be cleansed to be worthy of His choice, and become transformed into a vessel of honor, the resulting blessings and deliverances cannot be imagined in the present. Only time will show us the plans that He has for us, plans to prosper and not harm us, and how He has made us a blessing for others, even for generations.

May we choose to be vessels of honor worthy of use by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Potentate of the Universe!

*A good follow up read would be: ESPOUSED TO THE KING