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Paul is saying it is not about the jar or the container that the treasure is in, but it is about the treasure. The jar being us and the treasure being Jesus Christ and His power dwelling in us enabling us to do the things that He wants us to do.; to preach His Gospel to the world. The paradox is that we ourselves are weak, but strong when we have Christ dwelling in us.

Yes there is hope for the blinded. With God all things are possible and it is the work of the Holy Spirit to draw a person to God though we can pray for our unsaved mankind.

The more time you spend in the presence of God, prayer, studying of the Word, meditation, Church services the more you will be drinking in of God and His Character becoming more like His Son, Jesus. The theological word for the process of maturing in Christ is sanctification. I have definitely seen a change in the degree of glory that I am experiencing now compared to as little as two years ago, because that is when I was finally broken and turn completely to God.

We must pray, study, meditate on God's Spiritual Law in order to have a similar glow of the Spirit that Moses had. Meditating on Scripture helps us to write the Scripture and meaning of it in our hearts and minds because Scripture is God, the central theme of the Bible is Jesus and the Gospel. The less time we spend in communion with God the less we will become the image of Jesus. God is giving me more love for His Word and for giving and serving.

We are living letters in the way that we live our lives for Christ. When people see us they should see Christ in us, hear things the way that Christ says them, treat people the way that Christ treats people. People do sometime read others by what they see on the outside. When you do this there is a good chance you may be wrong on occasions. But people also read other by how they act and what they say. Sometimes we can spot phonies and sometimes we cannot. We must take care that we ourselves are genuinely sincere in our efforts to show others that we have Christ in our hearts, not for our gain or glory but for the glory of God. When some one compliments us we should thank them and let it be known that it is the Jesus in us and that to Him the glory belongs for any good they may see in us. We must stamp down any vanity or pride on our part and be humble.

When we fail to forgive, we hold a grudge against the person and that causes us to not be in fellowship with God whether we realize it or not especially at first. Satan uses this time when we are not in fellowship with God to keep it going, keep the spirit of unforgiveness festering in our heart and when we allow him to keep doing so, other bad ways begin to manifest themselves in us such as bitterness, gossip, vindictiveness all of which are sin and unpleasing to God. Not forgiving someone does not necessarily hurt the person unless the person asks for forgiveness and you do not give it to him, but it certainly does hurt you by making you miserable Not forgiving others keeps God from forgiving us when we sin and until we do forgive others, straighten out our part in disagreements with others God will not forgive any sin we have committed. He tells us not to approach Him until we have become reconciled with our brother and until we do we our relationship with God will be strained and the closeness and even our faith will be weakened at the time, because we will have the feeling of that if we are not pleasing God He will forsake us even though He has promised us He will never leave or forsake us. Giving the problem over to God, humbling ourselves is the way to let go of your resentment, we have to pray and just commit it to God; when we do this then God gives us a peace that passes all understanding

Being obedient to the authority in the church brings about unity and harmony among the members and helps the church grow spiritually. Obedience to self-serving leaders hurts the church because you are helping a leader who has an agenda of his own and has nothing to do with glorifying God. This person is leading you away from what God has for you. I am obedient to those whom are over me spiritually because for one I look on them as representatives of God, not as God and I do what they say as long as I feel that it is truth from God. I obey them because God tells me to and it helps to have peace, harmony and unity among the church members.

To lord it over someone is to have dominion over a person, telling that person what to do without any input from him. Good strong leadership is learning and knowing what is needed and using wisdom in your positon of authority; you do need a degree of micromanaging but not excessive control to the point where you are a dictatorship except in situations where you have to make a judgment and have that judgment carried out as the final decision rests with you. The meaning of laissez-faire is i think in this instance is to interfere as little as possible in the affairs of another which I could go along with as long as no direction is needed. If direction is needed there may be an instance when interference may have to happen. I will say this is a tough question for me and I am not sure if I am answering what is being asked. The dangers of an authoritative leadership style is that it is your way or the highway. You are not seeking advice from others and without a multitude of counselors people fall.Those under you will hesitate to approach you about matters concerning them. Prov. 11:14 Weak leadership is that those under you could pretty much do anything they want to. It could be like in the days when Israel was without a king and the people did what was right in their own eyes. You would not have the power that you do need to run things.

Having trials and crisis help us to realize, to see that there are things we cannot do, that we have to have more help than we have in ourselves; that we are really nothing and have no power at all within ourselves; in other words it teaches us to rely on the one true God; we have to turn to Him and have faith that He will solve the problem for us and at the same time give us patience, peace to endure while we are waiting on Him. Crisis have helped me to develop a closer relationship with God, a Father-child relationship, to where I look to Him for everything although sometimes He is not sought first all the time when I have crisis. I am still learning to do that. It has strengthened my faith in God to know that He is here for me even when I am out of fellowship with Him because of something that I have done that does not please Him; that He is just waiting on me to confess and He always forgives and welcome me back. Trials have also given me the experience that I need to be able to try to help others when they are having troubles and trials.

The comfort I get from my faith in Christ is assurance that whatever happens in my life now is for my own good, that it is because God is conforming me into the image of Jesus and that one day He will receive me unto Himself, that my salvation is sure and secure. The comfort I receive from God also helps me to endure whatever trials I might be going through. It help me get through ever minute, ever hour, ever day; some days more patiently than others. It gives me a peace that we cannot understand (Phil. 4:7) and this is what I tell family and friends when they need help from suffering.

In trying to restore someone to the fellowship of God, first one must pray for that person, pray with faith. But you cannot just only pray, you must DO whatever you can to help return that person to God. You cannot just sit around and wait on God to miraculously tell the person's brain to return to Him. You need to visit and council with the person and show love toward this person. You need to be doing something, taking some kind of action (keeping and seeking the will of God) while you are being patient and waiting on God to answer this prayer of faith.

The oil represent the presence of the Holy Spirit. Oil can be used in any circumstance where and when the Holy Spirit is used for anointing for whatever purpose, be it for healing or for an office or position. The prayer of faith is that the person who is doing the praying must have bold, believing faith when he or she partitions God. It is this prayer that effects the healing of a person. The role of faith is the faith or belief of the person who is requesting the prayer of faith. There must be some faith from the person who is being prayed over. The role of confession of sins is that and I speak from experience when you confess certain sins openly to another Christian be it a pastor or layperson you seem to have more determination to overcome that sin. You have now confessed to someone else other than God and you become accountable not only to God but to that person also and it make you try harder not to ever committ that sin again.

The one who is sick must initiate prayer for his healing. This is important because it shows that you have atleast some faith in God that He could heal you. This also proves that your mind is open to healing

Complaining and grumbling about someone tells me that I am making a judgement about this person, not being patient and forgivng for some wrong, real or unreal that I feel has been done to me. It tells me that I do not have the faith in God to please Him in that I am not patiently waiting on Him to correct the problem which in most cases is myself.

What might happen is we would not develop the endurance and sticktoitiveness that we need to have while we await His return. We could become weary and fretful; faith could become weak. Patience is vital because it is what gets us through each trial, each crisis we face as we wait for an answer from the Lord and for His return.