Have you allowed the potter to reshape you?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
(Jeremiah 18:1-4 (NIV))

We are all flawed in one way or the other. There is a good chance that we are all flawed in more ways than one. Ever since the fall from grace in the Garden of Eden, our human nature is a flawed, sinful nature. It is a nature that chooses things it shouldn’t even when we supposedly know better. We are not capable of doing good in the eyes of God, yet He loves us anyway. God has always had a plan to redeem us from our sinful nature. It is a plan that allows Him to remake us from the inside out!

What is the purpose of a pot? The purpose is the same whether the pot is large or small, ornate or plain. A pot is made to be a vessel that will hold something of importance to the owner of the pot. When this passage was written, pots could hold oil, water, wine, wheat, corn or a number of other items that were essential for day to day life.

God designed each of us to hold something essential!

We were designed to hold a part of God in our hearts. That design, and the contents of what we were to hold, made us a creation above all other of God’s creations.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
(Genesis 1:26 (NIV))

Sadly, in our sinful nature, the vessels that we were made to be have been marred. In order to be able to begin to have a chance to hold anything of value for God, we have to be shaped into something different than our sinful shape. We have to be made right with God and by God. We have to be molded into the image of Jesus. We have to be tested through the fire just as a potter uses a fire to prepare his creation for its intended use. Just as the master’s hands shape the pot, God’s hands shape us. God is the master potter.

Have you allowed the potter to reshape you?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Does creation think it is better than the Creator?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “You did not make me”? Can the pot say to the potter, “You know nothing”?
(Isaiah 29:16 (NIV))

I have read this passage many times before, but reading it today made me hang my head in sorrow and shame!

What is it about human nature that makes us think that we know better than anyone and everyone else, including the very one who formed us out of dust?

Do you ever find yourself telling God how things should be done? It may be something as small as a selfish prayer that only benefits you in a way that you don’t really need. If you stop and think about it, this kind of action is telling God that you can handle things better than He can. If we look at society, we see this type of arrogant attitude as the root of all of the issues that society is facing today. God has a plan, yet, too many people have come forward and believe that they have a better plan. Biblical values and principles are ridiculed and mocked by the so-called “educated” and “enlightened” people of this world. Even though they say that they don’t believe in God, they mock anything that is Biblically based. They believe that they have a better way than what is contained within God’s Word.

It’s sad how these people act.

If you have children, then you will probably agree with me on this mental picture. Is it just me, or do these people seem to be stuck forever in the “Terrible Twos” and forever trying to assert their authority when they truly don’t have any authority? To be honest with you, this all goes back to the Garden of Eden. God told Adam and Eve to stay away from the tree in the center of the garden and they believed the lie that He didn’t really mean it. In other words, they were convinced that they knew better than God.

And to this day, we all have a tendency to believe it, too!

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Just how much wisdom can the clay possess?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

You turn things upside down,
as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,
“He did not make me”?
Can the pot say of the potter,
“He knows nothing”?
(Isaiah 29:16 (NIV))

We think that we possess so much knowledge. We think that we can think and reason and overcome anything. Society has gotten to the point where too many people look at flawed reasoning and accept it simply because it is professed as scientific. These same people who claim scientific reason are the very same ones who reject faith because it can’t be explained by science. Even when there is no scientific evidence to support their position, they claim that human intelligence will eventually be able to unlock the scientific explanation for everything. It appears to me that they have placed their faith in the wrong place. They have placed it in the ability of the creation to know more than the Creator.

We have become the very essence of the words written of in Isaiah. I know that not each and every one of us is like that, but our society has become much more human-centric in the grand scheme of things. We have become a society that is saying that we, as the clay, know more than He who cast the clay and created these earthen vessels that we inhabit. How can humanity, which cannot even determine how many hairs are on our head, claim to know more than God, or even claim that there is no God?

And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
(Matthew 10:30 (NIV))

Our so called wisdom has made us foolish in the eyes of God. Our wisdom and our ways are nothing close to the truth.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
(Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV))

It appears that we have come to the point where we must pray earnestly that we do not get so wrapped up in our own so-called intelligence that we forget who created us. True wisdom is knowing God and knowing your relationship to Him through Jesus, His Son.

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight.
(Isaiah 5:21 (NIV))

Spend time daily within God’s Word and your wisdom and understanding of the ultimate truth will grow.

Copyright 1998 – 2015 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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