To the Potter's Pleasing

"But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make."
(Jeremiah 18:4)

In Jeremiah 18 God sends Jeremiah to the local potter’s house to help him get a visual on what He was going to do with the “house of Israel”. Israel had been wandering away from God for sometime & had turned to false god’s & immorality. God had planned to discipline them but was willing as always to give them a chance to turn back to Him.

Reading about Jeremiah’s trip to the potter’s house got me interested in seeing a potter at work for myself…I mean the only time that I’ve seen a potter at work is in the movie “Ghost” & that wasn’t quite what I was looking for, for an illustration. But I did watch one online from start to finish, & noticed how amazing it was to see this lady take a slab of gunk & make a beautiful vase out of it. It reminded me of what God wanted to do with Israel & what He wants to do with you & me & how we need to be willing to be formed.

When the lady started, she started with just a messy lump of clay. If it would have been set to the side, it would have just been a blob of worthless mud, useful for nothing. You couldn’t just stick some flowers in it & make it beautiful, you couldn’t drink out of it & you sure didn’t want to eat off of it. It had to be molded, shaped, worked into a useful form by the potter…& this lady was the one to do it. She took that slab of goop & plopped it down on the wheel & then put her hands on it & made sure that it was centered. Then as the wheel turned, she carefully formed that clay into a vase. Now there was only one thing that could have kept her from making this clay into what she wanted it to be, & that was the consistency of the clay. The clay had to be moldable, she did all the work, the clay just allowed her to do it.

When we first come to God we are no more than a mess of useless clay. Like that clay we can’t make something out of ourselves & we are not good for anything without the potter’s forming. But when we accept Christ, God puts us on His potter’s wheel & through salvation He centers us by indwelling us with the Holy Spirit, & when we are at the right consistency He starts to form us. Getting to the right consistency is probably the hardest part of this whole process…we have to come to the place where we realize that we are nothing & only God can make us something. Adrian Rogers said it best, 

“The only thing God makes something out of is nothing, so if you will become nothing, He will make something out of you”.

As we allow God to work on us, we become who & what He wants us to be. We become useful for His work…what once was formless & useful for nothing…becomes beautiful & able to accomplish God’s plans. 

There was one other thing that the lady did to this clay to make it into that beautiful vase. She placed it in a hot oven & baked it…or cured it. God often allows things to come into our lives to test us…to cure us…& like that clay, to strengthen us. The heat made that clay able to hold it’s useful shape.

If you do not know Christ today, accept Him as your Lord & Savior. If you have done this, then allow God to work on you, to form you into what is pleasing to Him & be at the right consistency for Him to be able to form you, through spending time with Him in daily Bible study & prayer…in a relationship with Him. Also, be willing to keep your eyes on Him when troubles or persecutions come & see it as no matter what happens, God is still in control & through all of this, you will allow God to make you into the person…the beautiful person, that He wants you to be & you will be able through Him to accomplish His will for your life.


Vern