THE DIVINE POTTER

In the Bible, God uses the Potter and Clay analogy to explain how God works on us to mould and shape us to become the people He wants us to be. In Jeremiah 18:1-6, the Prophet Jeremiah was made to observe the potter working on clay to give him a better of understanding of a spiritual truth: we need to continually come under the Divine Potter’s touch so we can be moulded into vessels of honour; vessels the Master Potter can be pleased with. Like Jeremiah rightly observed, in our walk with God we get marred just like the vessel that was marred in the potter’s hand. We are all a work in progress, vessels still undergoing a series of preparation. In the process of preparation, flaws, defects and blemishes may appear on our vessels, in our lives. Our vessels get spoilt by sins we fall for, sins that easily beset us. Thankfully, we have a Divine Potter who is able to work on every marred vessel; God can work on our hearts to get us to see where we need to make amends. The Potter’s touch can break away our pride, break every hardened heart and make us more open and receptive to His Word and His hand of correction. The hands of the Divine Potter is able to smoothen out marred areas of our lives, He can work on us until we overcome those weakness and sins that cleverly entangle us. If we are willing to remain under the Potter’s control, the same way a lump of clay stays there lifeless until the potter is through with it, the hands of the Divine Potter will keep working on us until something beautiful is brought out of every marred vessel. Transformation takes place when we are under the Potter’s touch. We need the hand of the Divine Potter to keep working on us until our lives fully reflect God’s glory. We need the hands of the Divine Potter to mould us, break us and change us. The Potter’s touch can repair lives that have been damaged by sinful habits and harmful lifestyles. It can correct what has gone wrong in our lives, and it can remove what He never planted in us. The hands of the Divine Potter can bring something beautiful out of every mess we are in. There is great hope for every life that remains under the Divine Potter’s touch.

The Potter’s House is a place of divine preparation; a place where clay is prepared for moulding. To get a workable paste the potter can use to create a beautiful vase or pot, an appropriate amount of water is added to the clay. This makes the clay pliable, flexible and mouldable. Without the water of the Word added to our lives, we can’t be workable paste in the hands of the Potter. 2 Timothy 2:20-21 tells us that a man has to purge himself of sin so he can become a vessel used for special purposes; so he can become a vessel of honour. It is the water of the Word of God that washes us, cleanses us and sanctifies us (Ephesians 5:26, John 17:17) making us vessels fit for the Master’s use. Just as water softens clay, the water of the Word can soften every hard heart or every hard and difficult situation we are going through. No potter can do his work effectively without using water; we cannot be properly and effectively prepared for the Lord without the water of God’s Word. There isn’t much God can do in our lives if we don’t daily give ourselves to reading, studying, meditating on and obeying God’s Word. God isn’t a magician that will just take a lump of clay and in a few minutes say abracadabra behold your vessel of honour. No, He needs the water of the Word to daily work on us and in us to produce vessels of honour.

The water of the Holy Spirit is also needed to make us workable and useable ‘clay’. For the Potter to be able to easily control us, mould us and shape us into the best vessel we can be for His glory, our lives must be brought under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Without the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we would be like a shapeless mass of clay. The Holy Spirit helps our lives to take the shape God has destined it to take. The Holy Spirit is like the potter’s wheel. The potter’s wheel is the machine the potter uses to shape clay. When God told Jeremiah to go to the Potter’s House, Jeremiah wasn’t asked what shape would you like the clay to take, do you want it to be a long or short cylinder? The clay itself wasn’t also asked, what shape would you like to be? (Isaiah 45:9) The Potter kept working on the clay until it took the original shape the potter had in mind, the shape that appeared best to the potter. Our goal in life should be to take the shape God has designed for our lives not the shape our friends, society, or even ourselves want it to take. It is only through the continued workings of the Holy Spirit that our lives can take the shape God has planned for it to take. The Holy Spirit fills us with skills, abilities and gifts that are pointers to the shape God wants our lives to take (1 Corinthians 12:11). The more we use these gifts for His glory, the more our lives take its true shape. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sins that disfigure the shape God wants our lives to take. The more we yield to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, the more our lives are straightened out. The more we pursue after righteousness and are filled with the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23, the more we become a beautiful piece of ‘pottery’; a beautiful expression of God’s love, light and glory.

Objects that are made out of clay aren’t made in a rush or hurry. The potter spends time with the clay, he works slowly and steadily to produce a work of art. As clay in the hands of the Potter, we must spend quality time each day with the Divine Potter so we can be properly prepared into a masterpiece; into a unique vessel of God that brings glory and praise to the Divine Potter.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ritesh Singh on Unsplash

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