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RHM Devotional: Treasure Chests from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo.

Today I want to talk about containers, particularly treasure chests: boxes that hold things. Let’s start with the Ark of the Covenant in Exodus 25. God told Moses:

They shall make an ark of acacia wood. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and outside shall you overlay it, and you shall make on it a molding of gold around it. Exodus 25:10-11 ESV

The ark of the covenant was rectangular box about the size of a small seaman’s chest. It was built from common wood, and then covered in pure gold. A cubit is defined as the length of a man’s arm when measured from the elbow to the tip of the forefinger, so around 18 inches. Using that scale means the ark would have measured around 45 inches long, 27 inches wide, and 27 inches tall.

Inside of the ark were the Ten Commandments, written on tablets of stone, and a few other priceless treasures, like Aaron’s staff that had budded almond blossoms, and a golden pot of the manna that the Israelites ate in the wilderness (Hebrews 9:4). It was called the “Ark of the Covenant” because it contained God’s law, which was the covenant between God and Israel.

The ark was crafted from natural wood, cut from trees that grew out of the earth. It was then overlaid in pure gold, which in scripture typifies God’s divine nature. Gold is an element and unlike other precious stones, it did not derive from anything else. For example, diamonds are created from other materials under immense temperature and pressure, but gold in its pure form, existed from the very beginning. According to Revelation 21:21, there will be streets of pure gold in heaven.

So when examining the ark, we find something made of common materials, overlaid with something eternal. The common, overlaid with the divine, then filled with precious treasure. The ark was a sacred treasure chest, and it contained the old covenant, but God planned to do something better. He said this in Jeremiah 31:

Jeremiah 31:31–33 (ESV) “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Jesus’ atonement brought in the New Covenant, and the old ark was taken away. Atonement means At-One-Ment. Think of two parties that were separated, but are now joined together as one. That is what Jesus did for us on the cross.

Like the ark, the human body is a container. It contains our spirit, and it can contain others like the Holy Spirit, as well as evil spirits. Apparently, it can hold many of them simultaneously. When Jesus cast the demons out of the man with the legion in Mark chapter 5, there were enough demons to kill 2,000 pigs living inside of that one man. Jesus talked about this more in Luke 11:

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.”  Luke 11:24-26 ESV

The spirit referred to the person as “my house.” He once lived there, and at the end of the story, there were at least eight evil spirits living in there. Our body is a container for spirits, both good and bad. I’ve seen enough Christians delivered, and felt them leave from me, to know that you can have the Holy Spirit, and a few others in there as well.

Your body is a house that God is taking over room by room. Eventually, hopefully, our body will be full of light, having no part dark (Luke 11:36) but it certainly does not begin that way. There are still “red light districts” inside most of us, areas of our lives that are not submitted to God.

Today, we are God’s treasure chest. He wants to cover us with His likeness, and fill us with His Holy Spirit. Instead of His law being written on stone and stored inside of the ark, God writes His word on our hearts. Paul said this:

2 Corinthians 3:3 (ESV) And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Romans 2:14–15 (ESV) For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts 

Just as the Ark of the Covenant was made of wood, and then covered in pure gold, we are made of earth but covered in His divine nature. The natural covered by the divine, filled with His presence, filled with His word. We are God’s treasure chests.

You can pray this with me if you like:

Prayer: Heavenly Father, please mold me, deliver me, and help me fulfill my purpose here. Fill me with Your word, Your Spirit, and cover me with Your presence, in the name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.