Our Turn on the Wheel

Jeremiah 18:1-11 18The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2‘Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.’ 3So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. 4The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. 5 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 6Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. 9And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. 11Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.
There are many times that God asks us walk out of our comfort zone and become what He desires us to be. We become Christians and we feel that we have arrived we have become what God wants us to be. Our feet are set in heaven and our names are written in the Lamb’s book, we are waiting for either death or the Lord’s return. My friends when we accept Christ our journey has just begun! Now that He has changed our eternal destination, He wants to mold us into what He wants us to be so that we can be used in His service. Many times that means stepping out in faith, leaving our comfort zones where we feel safe and secure. He wants to take us out of a place where life goes on just the way we like it and we feel we are in complete control.
While reading this scripture I realized how little I knew about what it takes to make a clay pot. I thought you dug the clay out of the ground, put it on the wheel, worked it with a little water, and threw it in an oven. As I learned the process for making one clay pot I began to see why God used this analogy to reach Israel. As we examine this process together perhaps you can hear God reaching out to you and wanting to change you and make you into a useful vessel for His service.
I first looked at mining clay and learned that you just didn’t dig a hole and use what you found. First you had to work out the impurities in the clay. You took one container of clay and one equal container filled half way with water and put the clay into the water mixing it till you had watery slurry. You then placed the screen over the empty container that contained the clay and poured the slurry over the screen removing the impurities you had found. After removing the screen you allow the container to set overnight while the slurry separated from the water and you could remove any other debris with the water.
God saves us just as we are with all the impurities still in our lives. We don’t wait till everything is right in our lives to come to God asking for forgiveness. We sing the hymn “Just as I am” and in the second verse we sing; just as I am, and waiting notto rid my soul of one dark blot, to Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, o Lamb of God, I come, I come. If we waited to come to God after we get our lives in order would we ever come? At what point do you say; “Okay, God I am ready now.” What is our measuring stick? When will we feel that we have everything ready for salvation? So we come to God with all our imperfection, all our baggage, asking for forgiveness and accepting Jesus as our savior. It is then that God begins to take these imperfections out of our lives. He begins to strain out the sin in our lives by pouring our lives through His screen, which is the bible. God places in us a hunger for His word and as we begin to read it, and it speaks to the imperfections in our lives, His word begins to strain these imperfections out of us.
At this point the clay is not ready to be thrown on the wheel, and God is still working out our imperfections. The potter has to work the clay till all the water is out and all the air bubbles have been removed. He has to fold it over and over till it reaches a consistency he can work with and all air bubbles have been worked out. If the potter leaves one air bubble in the clay it will crack, or explode when he fires the final piece ruining all his effort. There are times that we go back to our old lives because it is familiar to us, we feel comfortable in it, and what God is trying to do in us is making us face some things that are uncomfortable to us. There are things that we have hidden deep inside but have shaped our lives. We tell God what good does it do to bring these things out? God is not willing to leave us in our old lives these things are keeping us from becoming what God wants us to be. So he continues to work on us removing the desire for the old life and replacing it with a desire for a life centered on Him.
At this point the potter forms the clay into balls that is able to throw on the wheel. He has to throw it on the wheel with enough force that it sticks on the wheel, and as he throws it on the wheel it has to be centered. If the clay is not centered on the wheel it will begin to wobble as the potter works it, and he has to start all over again. God wants us to be centered upon His word so that no matter what comes in our lives we are able to withstand it. He wants us to in a bible believing church where the word of God is preached so that we have a community that supports us as we go on to become what He wants us to be. If we are not in the word we will fall for every false doctrine that comes along till we are far from the center of God’s will. At this point God moves us back to the center of his will and gets us back into His word, or we can stay forever wobbling not really sure of what we believe.
This process takes patience from the potter and from God. As the potter begins to shape the clay he has to keep a steady hand upon his work, for any movement will ruin his work and he again has to start all over. He begins to apply pressure to the clay and lift it up as he works it with his hands. He has a picture in his mind of what he wants the clay to become and he patiently yet forcefully moulds the clay and the pot begins to take shape. He keeps the clay and his hands wet ever mindful to keep the piece centered on the wheel. As God continues to shape us, His hands are never from us. We may feel at times that He is far from us, and even think that He has forgotten us but He is never far from us. He is watching our lives and shaping us into what He wants us to become.
This is where the similarities between the pot and the Christian cease for awhile. The pot can not be used by the potter until it is finished, but the Christian begins to explore how to be used of God. We begin to exercise the gifts that He has placed in us even while God continues to work on us. As we do we begin to serve Him other forces begin to shape as well. As we meet with success in our service we tend to look at ourselves doing the work and not God working through us. We begin to look at the creation as more important than the creator. The old life we led begins to pull at us, reminding us of the familiar life we led before all this church stuff began, calling us back to the sin we enjoyed like an old lost friend. We begin to think this is just too hard and we begin to give in to the familiar, the comfortable, and what is easier. We begin to wobble and get far from the center of God’s will, and God looks at what His creation has become and as the potter will do, smashes the creation and begins again. This is what happened to the nation of Israel as they got far from the center of God’s will He had devised a plan to bring them back to Him, back to the center of His will. In verse eleven we read; “Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord; Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.’ ” they had begun to wobble and God was going to bring them back to the center of His will.
At long last the potter is finished with His vessel and he begins to adorn it and seal it with glaze, preparing it for the firing. He looks on his creation with pride as he inspects the work for any flaws that would ruin it as it goes into the fire. Somewhere at the beginning of this whole process God has sealed us, separated us from the world and set us about His service. In 1 Corinthians 1:21, 22 we read. Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. We are sealed by the blood of Christ set aside for His service, and we have the pledge of the Holy Spirit that God will complete the work that He has begun in us. God has written our names in the Lambs book of life and they can never be removed. God does not have a big eraser that he takes up every morning opening the books and saying to Himself, “Let’s see who we can remove today.” Does this give us a license to sin? Certainly not, but there will be times that we will fall from the will of God and we have the Spirit to convict us and encourage us to get back to the center of God’s will.
The glazing makes us unique as well. The potter has to consider the content of the clay the temperature of the fire and the glaze he is using before he places the piece in the fire. He can take two identical pieces, glaze them the same way but once they are fired they come out looking completely different. We all react to God’s leading in different ways, yet God is able to work in the those differences to still create a product that is beautiful and unique, created to do what only we can do, as well as only we can do it. God saves us and uses us, changing our nature, but wants to leave our personalities intact, or even bring them out to the fullest of our potential. So is it any wonder that we respond differently to this whole process?
Finally the potter is ready to place the piece in the kiln. The potter knows how hot the fire can be, he knows that he has worked out all the imperfection in the clay , he knows that he has sealed the piece to preserve the beauty of the piece, and that the fire will bring out that beauty to its fullest. He knows his piece and he knows his work. God has prepared us for the tests and the trials that will come our way. He has readied us for the persecution that we can stand strong against it. He knows that we are centered in His word that we will be able to withstand false doctrine, and not settle for someone just tickling our ears and telling us what we want to hear. He has sealed us with the blood of His Son and has placed his Spirit in us that we will not settle for second best. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and knows we can withstand the fire. The potter never leaves the piece alone in the fire. The kiln the potter has placed his prized piece in has a sight glass in it that is able to check on the product and make sure that it is surviving the process and when he can remove it from the fire.
When God places us in the fire He goes in with us in order to keep a better eye on His precious creation. When Nebuchadnezzar fired up the furnace so hot that the guards that brought Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- Nego, to it died, he intended to kill them. God had prepared the three to withstand the fire. When the king looked into the fire he saw the men not only surviving the fire but walking around in the fire with one who looked like the Son of God. When he brought them out of the fire their clothes weren’t singed and didn’t even smell of smoke. They had survived the fire.
Still sometimes the fire causes the piece to crack. The potter knows that despite his best efforts the piece is destroyed. Again this is where we are separated from the pot. Though we are weakened by the fire, though our weakness seem to keep us from becoming all that God wants us to be, God can work in that weakness. In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 we read: And least I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in my infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distress, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak then I am strong.
No matter if it is a weakness we took in the fire with, something that we cling too refusing to turn over to God. Or if it something caused by the persecution from others because of our witness for God, His grace is there to work in our weakness, that He might become our strength. Though we pray that this one thing will keep us from becoming all that God intends us to become, God is telling us I want to work through that weakness to glorify my name. If you were abused, then God may want to work though you to reach others who are abused. If you have been divorced, God may want to reach others who are going through divorce. If you lost a loved one, God maybe sending you to comfort another who is grieving that you can comfort. The list can go on and on.
In our service to God we are encouraged to step out of our comfort zone to become what God wants us to be, forgetting our weaknesses, forgetting the past life and walking in faith knowing that is working on us to make us what He desires us to be. He never leaves us, and He will never lead us astray.
Prayer: Father help me to turn over to you today my weaknesses, so that you can make them strengths in my life that will bring you glory. In Jesus’ name amen.

Living With the New Gift

Psalm 36:5-10
5 Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. 6 Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O LORD. 7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
8 They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. 9 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. 10 O continue your steadfast love to those who know you, and your salvation to the upright of heart!

We all have one gift that we get for Christmas that we cherish above all other gifts. It is usually something we have been hinting at for months. We leave clues everywhere or when the thing we want is advertised we comment that we sure would like to have that. At last Christmas comes and we open the gift and we say, “How did you know?” or “This is just what I always wanted?” What we meant to say was if I didn’t get it someone was going to be in trouble.
We keep the present near to us caring for it and trying to keep it new. We go to great lengths to keep the present looking just as it did the day we opened it. Two Christmas’ ago I received just such a gift in a XM radio. I would keep it in its’ case, wipe it off when I used it, took it in and out of my truck. When I saw the first scratches on it I was upset. Despite my best efforts it looked used and the newness had worn off. All things, no matter how hard we try to keep them new, wear out and end up in the trash.
There are attributes of God’s nature that when in a relationship with Him we can consider gifts in our lives. What do I mean? If you were born into an affluent family you might by association of your birth to the family be entitled to an easier life, than someone who has to struggle for everything they get. Being born into the family of God and having a relationship with him does not entitle us to a more affluent life but because of His nature we benefit from his nature. The Psalmist writes in verse five, “Your mercy,” and “Your faithfulness,” these are attributes of God’s nature that are given to us. For what good is mercy without someone to extend it to, and what benefit is to be faithful if you have no one to benefit from that faithfulness. The gifts of God mentioned in the 36 Psalm are gifts that are eternal, they are new to us every day, and they never wear out.
Let’s look at the five attributes of God that are extended to us. The first mentioned in verse five is Mercy. God’s mercy is not something that is owed to us as some in the world think that everything is owed to them. Exodus 33:19 says; And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” A mother once approached Napoleon seeking a pardon for her son. The emperor replied that the young man had committed a certain offense twice and justice demanded death. "But I don't ask for justice," the mother explained. "I plead for mercy." "But your son does not deserve mercy," Napoleon replied. "Sir," the woman cried, "it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask for." "Well, then," the emperor said, "I will have mercy." And he spared the woman's son. If we received what we are owed we would receive death, but because of God’s mercy He extends life to us. Not because of anything we do but in spite of what we do.
The second attribute that is mentioned in verse five is faithfulness. David writes your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. If we look up no matter where the cloud cover is that is as far as we can see. This is what David was trying to get across when he wrote this. As we look at each day that is ahead of us, each problem that will come our way, or every fear that confronts us, we can know that God is faithful to see us through it. We can walk forward knowing the God of heaven has gone before us, goes along side us, and comes behind us, as far as we can see God is there. These are comforting words to hear but how can we walk in the faith that no matter where we are God is there with us.
The only thing that that I can think of that would make us doubt God’s faithfulness is if we were not faithful to Him. If we had not walked in the way of the Lord and we sinned against Him this would cause us to doubt His faithfulness or make us feel that we didn’t deserve it. Reenter God’s mercy!! Psalm 37 says; “Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.” Even when we fail God he will not fail us. He is faithful to us even in our sin, by convicting us and leading us to repentance. So even when we fail to trust in Him and no not do good, we are to live each day feeding on his faithfulness that he will not leave us in our sin.
Still God’s faithfulness is sometimes hard for us to understand because it extends beyond what we can understand. When things are going our way it is easy to be faithful, when people treat us right it is easy to be faithful. But when things begin to get hard, and people tend to abandon us it becomes harder to focus on our faithfulness. We can only see our difficulties and we are blinded to see beyond them. Feeding on God’s faithfulness will enable us to see beyond the clouds of doubt. This takes prayer and practice, learning from our failures and trusting God for what we don’t understand.
The third attribute mentioned is in verse six. David writes; Your righteousness is like the great mountains. When we think of a mountain, we get the image of something that is steadfast and unmovable, not easily assailed, something that is difficult to get around, awe inspiring, it becomes an obstacle that we have to deal with, a beautiful landmark that inspires us to creativity. As we think of the attributes of God we come face to face with God’s righteousness and we are forced to take a look at it. As we marvel at a righteous God we are also forced to look at our own righteousness. Isaiah 64:6 says; But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. When we try and compare our righteousness to God’s we see that no matter how good we think we are, no matter how we try and excuse our behavior, compared to God’s righteousness, our righteousness is nothing. We can’t get under it, around it, over it, we are forced to look upon our righteousness and measure it against the righteousness of God.
God’s righteousness is more than an avenue for self exploration it is a refuge to us. Because God’s righteousness is steadfast, we can trust in it and that He will always make the best choice for our lives if we surrender to Him and learn not to trust in our own righteousness. Our choices are sometimes motivated by emotions and worldly influence, but God’s choices are always motivated by His righteous nature.
God’s righteousness become a blessing to us as we search for it and find it in Him. Jesus said in Matthew 5:6 “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Hunger is a desire that drives us, and as we hunger and search out righteousness we find faith. We have examined our own righteousness and compared it to God’s are left wanting. We are left hungry searching for a righteousness we can only have filled by faith. That faith is fueled by God’s righteousness and a promise that He will provide redemption for us and has in the person of Jesus.
As we continue to study the attributes of God’s nature found in Psalm 36 we come across Judgments. David says that God’s judgments are a great deep, and finishes his observation of God’s judgments by saying that you preserve man and beast. As David looked at the wickedness around him he had to wonder where the judgment of God is. I know that in my own life I have witnessed others, who seemed to get away with so much,
I wonder as much myself. In verses one thru four David goes on about the wickedness of man then turns his attention to the attributes of God, David had examined man and found him to be wicked and without fear of God. He had examined the judgments of God and wondered how He could allow such injustice to go on.
The illustration that David uses as he examined the judgment of God was that of a great deep. Those going to sea would take a rope knotted at certain intervals with a weight on the end. The distance between these knots was called fathom. As it was dropped in the sea they would call out the dept by how many knots or fathoms went under the water. David had found the judgments of God could not be measured and could not be understood. He found God to be sovereign and that He owed no account of how he administered His sovereignty to him. He found that God acts wisely in all matters, even though he could not always see the way God acted. Many times as we observe the wickedness of man we wonder where the judgment of God is, because we can not see how God is acting in each situation. It is enough for us to know that he is acting, and it is enough for us to know that in time all things will be revealed to us. It may not be in this lifetime, but in time we will have understanding.
Having measured the judgments of God and found them to be immeasurable, David turns his attention to the providence of God. David writes that God preserves man and beast. David found that God provided for the beast of the field, the righteous, and the wicked alike. We are not to wonder why God would provide blessings for the wicked any more than we are to fear that God will provide for good men. God’s provisions are just that God’s provisions and it is by His sovereign will that He would administer them.
We look at the lives of the wicked and wonder why they seem to have more than us. We wonder why their driveways are graced with new cars and they seem to have little worries. What David is saying is that God’s blessings fall on who He wills. We are to take courage in that the God who provides for the wicked will not let His children starve.
In this way God’s judgments become a gift to us that we can trust in and live our lives serving him not fearing for our own needs.
The last attribute in this psalm is loving-kindness. David says that God’s loving-kindness is precious to him. In Psalm 63:3 David continues this thought when he says that God’s loving-kindness is better than life itself. His loving-kindness is alluring in that it draws us to Himself. When we begin to date we are attracted by someone’s eyes, the perfume they wear, their looks, the car they drive, the way they carry themselves, and the list can go on. As we get to know this person and they begin to display love and kindness to us and we are drawn to that and begin to take the relationship further. We begin to trust this person, and begin to explore the feelings of love that we are starting to feel for them. As this feeling gets deeper we find ourselves not only trusting the other person but finding out we can’t get along without them.
In Jeremiah 31:3 we read: The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying; “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”
What good is to say that God appeared to us in the past and told us He loved us?
When we are in trouble, have lost a loved one, or feel so far from God, how can this comfort us? God says I love you with an everlasting love. The loving-kindness we felt that God drew us near to him is still present in times of trouble. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, not trouble, not debt, not fear, and as David found out not the loss of a child. As David was on his face praying for God to heal his child, it was the memory that God stilled loved him that carried him through the pain of losing a child, and the pain of the sin against God. It was that same love that allowed him to dust himself off and go on with his life after the child had passed. It is the memory that God’s love is still extended to us even when we can’t feel it.
To many times we can’t get past the lost of a child, the loss of a spouse, the pain of broken relationships. We feel that God has abandoned us and we blame Him for the pain we are experiencing. As I have confessed to you before that I was stuck in such in just such a place after my divorce. I felt that God had forgotten His promise to love me, but it was His persistent love that brought me back to the memory that His love was eternal. In this way God’s gift of loving-kindness was extended to me, and I was able to rest in it.
As these attributes of God become gifts in our lives, we become satisfied with them, but yet want more. How is this possible? How can you be satisfied with something but yet want more? In our attempt to keep up with the Jones, we want bigger and better. We get a 52 inch big screen and see that someone else has a 61 inch screen. We become dissatisfied with our big screen and we want a bigger one. We may want more of God’s mercy, faithfulness, righteousness, judgments, and loving-kindness but not to keep up with the Jones of the world, but because we crave the closeness to God that we experience from a relationship with Him. Because we have learned that it is all we will ever need. In God’s gifts we find a fountain of life not only to carry us into eternity, but our daily lives. As we drink in the gifts of God we are refreshed, renewed, and able to face what ever comes our way.
In verse nine David also talks about seeing light in God’s light. As we gaze at God’s light and live in it, it becomes reflective. In it we can see eternity and take hope that whatever happens to us that light and the love that glows from it will never fade. As we allow God’s light to live in us it becomes reflective in our lives as well, and as it shines out of us it catches on another, and yet another, and still another. We have received some precious gifts. What will you do with them? Will you place them on a self and marvel at them dust them off now and then? Or will you keep them new by sharing them with someone else?