Trust the Potter

Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. Jeremiah 18:3-4

I've been listening to a series of messages I purchased 3 years ago and never got to listen to in their entirety. It's a series on Grace for Repeat Offenders, by a pastor down in Florida. I had the privilege of sitting under him for nearly a year off and on. He’s a great revelatory preacher, with the calling of a prophet on him, whether he knows it or not.

Something I heard this morning about the story of the potter and the clay in Jeremiah brought the whole story home to me again as if for the first time. I've heard the story since I was a child, but sometimes a new perspective is good. We all know the clay is shaped by the potter and as clay; we have no say in what he makes of us...if we want to stay in his will! Not every vessel will be as useful as another vessel, but each serves its own purpose. We all have our own potential.

The foot of the potter sets the vessel spinning with the situations of life, but it is the hand of the potter that puts constant unseen pressure on us. He is not just playing with the clay; he has a finished product in mind. We however can resist the potter's hands in our life. As mankind, we have the choice of free-will, and we can resist him. He will send situations our way to keep the pressure on us to mold us into the shape desired of us, but if we resist his touch, he must crush us down and reshape us over again.

If we continually and constantly resist and harden ourselves in places to the point where the Potter has tried to reshape us, he has no choice but to cut something out of our lives. These can be sins, personal goals that don't meet his plan for our lives, entertainment, hobbies, friends, even family...anything that we cling to in avoidance of His will. Sometimes it can be doing something He wants us to do but won't because He hasn't "spoken" to us the way we want him to speak to us. That's why we must be sensitive to his presence so we don't miss our moment and our destiny.

I've seen this in my own life and in my family the past two years. I'm so glad that when pastor decided to guide the church in a direction which God had led him to go, he didn't have 700 people stand up and tell him, "God didn't tell me to do that. I ain't doing it!" Then again, he may have a few like that there. He refers to them as the section that can't be shaken off the pews by an earthquake.

I remember praying a couple years ago after talking to a prominent evangelist in the healing ministry who travels across America teaching seminars on the gifts of the Spirit and healing crusades. I prayed that God would protect my family and especially my kids after something he told me. I fought it, kicked against it and resisted it when he answered that prayer. Timetables of our answers are up to God. He heard our request as soon as we prayed it. The time of the answer was up to him.

I've often said, "he loves us but he loves us too much to leave us the way we are." We must bear fruit. We can't do that when we are running our own lives or if we are harnessed to someone who just will not listen to God. I fought with it for two years and it was a roller-coaster ride. The devil doesn't have to get you to sin if he can keep you distracted by a family member that is having an emotional roller-coaster ride in their spiritual life. I fought to build my prayer life back, my fasting, my consecration, and my witnessing. I'll be the first to admit, all areas had suffered.

Having grown up in the church, I had a routine of walking with God that I knew worked. It wasn't easy, but when I fell away and was wounded by elements inside the church, I withdrew and after 7-10 years on the back side of the desert, he called me out. It's been 4 years now since someone I love prodded me back to the church. They had never been in one of our services and had no idea what was going to happen. I prayed about it and everything worked out just fine. They came into the truth too and are still going although struggling...Don't we all.

Our ideologies from the world often affect the time, process and way God shapes our walks with him. If we are used to "running the show," controlling every aspect of our lives and having the ultimate "say-so," the shaping process can be a traumatic tug-of-war between us and God that affects not only ourselves, but our family and our children.

It's amazing the witnesses that we lose by our conduct around our own family. Often we can be angry with someone for something they do wrong or we perceive as wrong, and in the ensuing argument, tempers fly and we battle it out, some families may even wake the entire neighborhood with their turmoil. Each party can walk away, firmly determined that they are right, and even try to drag other parties into their debate to somehow validate the "rightness of their wrongness."

Anyone watching it that has any common sense knows that every argument, debate or fight has two sides, and the devil will make sure that when it happens there are PLENTY of witnesses. My ex-father-in-law spoke to me about this recently, warning that any debate, if prolonged long enough, can hurt your witness. That's why Jesus said in Matthew 5: 25, "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison." He never expected us to bicker and fight with our brother, whether our brother in the church, our family or the world.

This reasoning is readily evident in the recent conflict with Israel and Lebanon. Each side wais firmly convinced they were right. Hezbollah fighters kidnapping Israeli troops and sending rockets crashing into Israeli cities and homes provoked Israel to send in troops, air strikes and artillery. Once the battle was joined, neither side would retreat. Eventually other countries refused to even admit the cause of the fighting was an unprovoked attack by Hezbollah guerillas. So often our own lives are mirror images of the times we live in. We can be so right we are wrong. It's amazing how much politics plays into how some people remember things...even in the church!

We have to let the Potter shape us and mold us and take us in the direction he wants us to go. National leaders deal with this every day in the church. The same at the district and section level and even as mentioned before, pastors in local churches. Leadership doesn't stop there. God has established leadership in the homes too. Fathers have a mandate by God's Word to lead their families in the will of God, teach them the Word, and lead them in worship, prayer, praise and in setting an example. With that leadership comes a heavy responsibility.

I listened to Bro. Harold Hoffman speaking at a men's conference 2 years in Apopka, Florida, say it so boldly, "Pentecost has been dominated by women long enough." (This was not a slam on women but praise of their efforts and a call to the men to step up to God's order of spiritual leadership mandated by the word of God. Edited: Thanks Kristy. I hope I clarified this!)

It's time for men to step forward into the leadership rolls God has established in his Word for them and be the spiritual leaders in their homes. As an organization, I've seen the church being molded in this direction for over 25 years. It has met resistance, physically and spiritually, but it is God's will, established in his Word.

So often we attempt to self justify resistance to his will. My former pastor and pastor's wife, Rev. James and Ruth Gilbert, now retired, used to tell us all the time. "Prayer is you talking to God, but reading the Word of God is God talking to you!"

So much is said about finding the "will of God for our lives," when the answers are pretty much always found in the scripture. I don't need to know if something is God's will for me if it contradicts the Bible. If it violates established principles of the scripture, walk away from it!

I have two friends that used to call me for advice. The one became a Buddhist, forsaking the teachings of their childhood from the Bible, the other is Pentecostal. Unfortunately, when I give advice, it's usually from the Word of God. They both hated the fact that I always prefaced any answer I gave from the Word. If you recall, so did the devil in Matthew 4. The devil had no answer to anything Jesus replied to with the Word. I've seen dramas and plays that show him arguing with Christ, but scripture shows no response to the answer Christ gave, "it is written."

We are shaped by our response to the entire Word of God and pressure from situations he brings to bear in our lives. We can't resist his will and his word and accomplish anything. Resistance is possible, but highly not recommended! After he cuts out the hardened spots, crushes, reshapes us and perfects (matures) us, he will throw us into the heat of the oven. We'll be tried by fire no matter what we desire. It's the only way to get the vessel ready for use. We won't always understand why, and "Why" is an answer he will almost never answer.

He's not working in the blind. He has a master-plan for our lives. Where he leads me I will follow. I want to yield to him, according to the word of God and his direction in my life.

Crush me again and this time, I understand, that the Potter who shapes me, toils with nail-scarred hands. Here I am, take me, Lord, and place me on your wheel. I'll gladly stay here in the Potter's House than lay out in his field.