John the Baptist said that God had sent him to do four things in order to prepare the way of the Lord ( Luke.3:5 ):

(1) To raise up the valleys;

(2) To bring down the mountains and hills;

(3) To straighten the crooked paths; and

(4) To smoothen the rough places.

This is what the Holy Spirit seeks to do in our lives too:

(1) He has to raise up the low-lying areas - the areas where we are ruled by earthly things - like sex, money, human honour and reputation etc.

(2) He has to bring down the mountains of pride, arrogance and conceit (due to our abilities), and even the little hills of feelings of superiority (for example, when we do a job well).

(3) He has to get rid of all the crookedness and guile that there is within us.

(4) He has to soften our hardness, harshness and roughness.

Then the promise is, that everyone will see the salvation that God has wrought in our lives (Luke.3:6 ); and every part of our flesh will manifest the glory of God (Compare Isa.40:3-5 ). Like a prairie fire, God wants His glory to sweep across our flesh, little by little, area by area, destroying every bit of it.

In Jeremiah 48:10 , it says, "Cursed be the one who does the Lord's work (the work of making Jesus Lord in every area of our flesh) negligently, and cursed be the one who restrains his sword from blood (that is, one who deals gently (instead of ruthlessly) with the lusts in his flesh)." It goes on to say in the next verse that because Moab has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, his aroma has not changed.

In an article titled 'Emptied from Vessel to Vessel', John Follette speaks of various vessels into which God pours us in order to get rid of our dregs - vessels of misunderstanding, ridicule, false accusation and dark trial etc. All these vessels have an amazing way of eliminating the dregs from our lives, if only the wine will remain still (" at rest"), so that the dregs can settle quickly. Once the dregs settle at the bottom of one vessel, God will pour us into another vessel. Thus our aroma gets sweeter and sweeter. But we must learn to be at rest - never justifying ourselves or defending ourselves. Otherwise, through constant disturbance, the wine will not be free from its dregs. There is a lot of wasted suffering among God's people, because they justify themselves and don't just commit their cause to God and leave it with Him.

In Zechariah 2:13 , we read that "all flesh must be silent (at rest) before the Lord, since He has come from heaven to dwell in our midst" (see verse 10). This is how it must be within us at all times.