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THE PENTATEUCH

GENESIS ---EXODUS--- LEVITICUS 1.1-7.38 --- 8.1-11.47 --- 12.1-16.34--- 17.1-27.34--- NUMBERS 1-10--- 11-19--- 20-36--- DEUTERONOMY 1.1-4.44 --- 4.45-11.32 --- 12.1-29.1--- 29.2-34.12 --- THE BOOK OF JOSHUA --- THE BOOK OF JUDGES --- PSALMS 1-17--- ECCLESIASTES --- ISAIAH 1-5 --- 6-12 --- 13-23 --- 24-27 --- 28-35 --- 36-39 --- 40-48 --- 49-55--- 56-66--- EZEKIEL --- DANIEL 1-7 ---DANIEL 8-12 ---

NAHUM--- HABAKKUK---ZEPHANIAH ---ZECHARIAH --- THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW ---THE GOSPEL OF MARK--- THE GOSPEL OF LUKE --- THE GOSPEL OF JOHN --- THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES --- 1 CORINTHIANS 1-7 --- 8-16 --- 2 CORINTHIANS 1-7 --- 8-13 -- -GALATIANS --- EPHESIANS --- COLOSSIANS --- 1 THESSALONIANS --- 2 THESSALONIANS --- 1 TIMOTHY --- 2 TIMOTHY --- TITUS --- HEBREWS 1-6 --- 7-10 --- 11-13 --- JAMES --- JOHN'S LETTERS --- REVELATION

--- THE GOSPELS

Chapter 13 You Are Our Potter And We Are The Work Of Your Hand. (Isaiah 64.8; Jeremiah 18.2-4).

In the Old Testament there is a wonderful illustration of what it means to be God’s and to be subject to His will. In Isaiah 64.8 God says, through Isaiah, ‘But now, Oh Lord, You are our father; we are the clay, and You our potter; and we all are the work of Your hand.’

Here the emphasis is on the fact that God is our Father, and as our Father He uses His Potter’s skills to do with us what He wills. He is the skilled Workman and we are the clay. This is a secret that we need to learn, that God is ‘at work within us to will and to do of His good pleasure’ (Philippians 2.13). And we must not just learn it we must accept that it is true. What we must therefore do is, like the clay, lie malleable in the Potter’s hands, looking to Him and responding to His guidance through His word, and yielding to His touch through the Spirit, and then we can know that He will fashion us into what He will. And the weaker we are, the more we can do it.

And Paul continues the thought. He asks, “Can the clay say to the Potter, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ ” And his reply is, ‘No’. For the Potter has the right over the clay to do with it what He will (Romans 9.20). Here then we have a picture of what it means to be a Christian from another angle. Previously our thought has been on Christ living through us. The thought has been on action through us. Now we see a picture of the life-changing power of God at work on us. And the point being made is that we must trust the Potter and be responsive to His hands. Yet it is not so different a picture, for the Potter Who watches over us to shape our lives, also dwells within us in order to impart to us His power (John 14.23). This will result in no less action, as we experience His dynamism.

But then we come to the prophet Jeremiah (18.2-4), and we can only stand amazed. For there is no more wonderful illustration of the goodness of God than his short story of the Potter. In it again God is the Potter and we are the clay. But this time there is a new angle. Do you feel that your life is not what it should be, that it has failed to live up to its promise, that you are having to make do with second best, because you have not responded to the shaping of His hands? Then consider the story of the Potter here.

‘Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, see, he was making a piece of work on the wheel. And when the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.’

The prophet went down to the small square stone building which was the potter’s house, and as he watched in fascination, the potter continued on with his work, while he silently watched the movements of the potter’s hands, his eyes fixed on the whirling wheel on which the vessel was taking shape. But then to his distress he saw that the clay had not responded to the potter’s guiding hand, and it was turning out to be a distorted mess. So he waited to see what the Potter’s next action would be. What would the potter do? Would he toss it away? Would he fling it from him in disgust? No. With infinite patience he brought together the clay and began his work once more and as his skilful hands worked on the clay, ‘he made it again’. The final product may not have been the one that was first intended, but it was made in accordance with what he wanted. It was ‘as seemed good to the potter to make it’. There was no flaw in it. It had been ‘made again’.

Remember it was God Who was intending to use this illustration. Thus you can apply it to yourself. You may feel that God began to shape your life many years ago but that somehow you have caused it to be spoiled, and so you may feel that God has really finished with you. That all you can do is carry on and be second best. Well here is the good news. Here in this story the vessel was spoiled in the hand of the Potter. So what did He do? Did He cast it off and toss it to one side, and pick up another piece of clay? No, He ‘made it again’, and He made it into what seemed good to Him. He did not just dismiss that piece of clay. He was determined to make it useful and worthwhile, and ‘He made it again’. And it was not second best. It was shaped in accordance with His will.

In the words that followed God applied this to His people. He pointed out that they had been marred in His hands by sin and disobedience. But He wanted them to know that like the potter He was very patient. His promise was that if they would repent and seek again to do His will, they would be remade in His hands, and not only remade, but remade into something useful, a new vessel in the Potter’s hands. And this is true for each of us too. No matter how long or how badly we have been marred. If we but return to Him in repentance, seeking forgiveness and restoration, He will ‘make us again’, not a remake of the old vessel, but a new vessel with a new purpose and a new hope.

Indeed there is a real sense in which this message is for all of us. For none of us are ever fully responsive to the Potter. In this way or that we twist and turn, and we cause the clay that the Potter is fashioning to be misshapen. What encouragement it should therefore be to us all, that He unceasingly ‘makes us again’.