There Are No Empty Vessels

I’ve been thinking about the word ‘empty’ and I’ve decided that ‘empty’ is rather a negative word.  Think about it; empty pockets, empty gas tank, empty promises. Now there may be a few times when something being empty can be a good thing…like that bushel basket of green beans you just broke up, but for the most part we just don’t like to think of empty things.

I’ve been writing about us being vessels of the Lord, and how we are filled with Him.  I was going to elaborate on how we are also filled with light, and love and any number of wonderful attributes from God.  Perhaps though, some of you don’t feel like you’re filled with anything; rather, you feel empty.  An empty vessel.  Unable to help yourself, much less anyone else.  Believe me, I’ve been there.

What if I told you that you are not really empty; none of us are.  We’re filled one way or another, either positive or negative, good or bad, .  Now I know that these days people don’t think as much in terms of black and white; there are myriad shades of gray in between. 

Not to Jesus though. In Luke 11:23 He says, “Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.” (NLT)  That sounds pretty black and white to me.

That’s why I’ve reasoned that we can’t really be an empty vessel.  If we are not full of joy, we then are full of sadness, or discontent, or some other joy stealer.  If we’re not full of hope, then we are hopeless.  If we’re not full of zeal, we are full of apathy.  If we are not filled with light, then we are filled with darkness.

Are we filled with the love of God?  If not, what are we filled with?  Hate, dislike, condemnation, pride, bitterness?  What crowds out the love of God?

Are you beginning to see?  We are never truly an empty vessel.  I looked up the word “filled” in the Bible, and I began to realize what all man can be filled with.  Let me give you a few examples:

Filled with the Spirit of God, wisdom, laughter, wonder and amazement, joy, fruits of righteousness, comfort, goodness, all knowledge….and in Ephesians 3:19, “….filled with all the fulness of God.”

Filled with mischief, filled with his own ways, filled with pain, indignation, wrath, fear,  madness, sorrow, envy….and in Romans 1:29,  “being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness…”

(All from the King James/New King James versions of the Bible.)

There again; black and white.  Goats and sheep.  Right and wrong.  Good and evil. 

I think it’s easier then to think of ourselves as empty rather than to think that we are filled with the wrong things.  But when I am empty of faith, then I am full of doubt.  When my cup of kindness runs low, it becomes filled instead with annoyance, irritation, rudeness, or even meanness. 

It may even be dangerous to our souls to think of ourselves as merely empty vessels, in self-deprecation saying, “Oh I don’t have any gifts, or God can’t use me, or I’m not of value to anyone; I’m just an empty vessel.”

Beware of empty vessels.  “When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, seeking rest but finding none.  Then it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’ So it returns and finds its former home empty, swept, and in order.  Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before. “  Jesus himself said this in Matthew 12:43-45.

He was speaking of a human soul. A person accepts Jesus into his heart, the evil spirit has to leave, but if the person doesn’t keep the Lord in his heart, doesn’t truly commit himself to loving Christ and others, isn’t sincere in serving God, he doesn’t remain neutral.  No soul can be Switzerland, neither serving God or serving Satan.  He can’t just stay empty.  That is a sobering thought.  To me those scriptures show that there are no empty vessels.

I don’t want to sound hard or harsh…like I said, I intended to talk about light and love and all good things.  But I believe the Lord would have each of us to examine ourselves as to what is filling our vessels; to realize that we are full of something.  We need to admit to ourselves that we are not empty. 

I don’t mean to be presumptuous or compare myself to Paul in any way, shape or form, but I would like to use his prayer and his words as my own in closing:

“I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

I am fully convinced, my dear brothers and sisters, that you are full of goodness. You know these things so well you can teach each other all about them.  Even so, I have been bold enough to write about some of these points, knowing that all you need is this reminder…”  (Romans 15:13-15 NLT)

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