I’m a Pot, You’re a Pot – Part Five

 “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.”  (II Corinthians 4:7)

People respond to a pot that’s got Jesus showing in it. They are turned off by pots without His prominent presence.

Gandhi of India was intrigued by Christ. A friend asked him, “If you are so intrigued with Jesus Jesus, why don’t you become a Christian?”

Gandhi replied, “When I meet a Christian who is a follower of Christ, I might consider it.”

There are many who follow Jesus commendably. Unfortunately, Gandhi never met one.

Mao Tse-tung came to America eager for a western education and for an exposure to Christianity. After observing Christians around him his curiosity turned to disillusionment, and his heart and mind shifted to Marxism. He returned to China and led that country into atheistic Communism.

Upon hearing this has the question occurred to you … if Ghandi met you would he have seen Jesus? If Mao had known you would he have been inspired to turn to Jesus as a follower? All around there are people like Gandhi and Mao observing people like you.

Now the metaphor shifts from the content of the pot to the pot itself.

A pot is the product of a potter, one who makes pots.

The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah relates a personal experience that gives all hope.

“Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make”  (Jeremiah 18:3, 4).

The Lord declared through Jeremiah, “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand” (Jeremiah 18: 6c).

Perhaps the clay spoken of in this passage is indicative of your life. As the potter was fashioning what he designed for the clay it became misshapen.

Many lives get “misshapen.” Something happens that keeps the life from being all the Master Potter had in mind for it.

Notice the potter didn’t throw away the clay. He shaped and molded it and put it back on the spindle and made another different, but useful vessel.

Perhaps there has been an experience in your life that has kept the Lord from shaping your life as He originally desired. Don’t despair. He isn’t through with you yet. He wants to put you back on his spindle and remold you. Though you can never be the vessel He originally intended, you can be another beautiful, a useful vessel. He, the Master Potter, wants to make you a functional person, a vessel in which He is alive.

A useful pot is begot by yielding to the Potter and allowing Him to shape and fill you. It is called obedience.

One day the spiritual Arc De Triomphe, the Pearly Gates of Heaven, will be in your gaze. Do you have assurance that you will be in the celestial triumphant procession to enter?  Are you assured that Jesus is alive in you by faith in Him?