Shaped By God (Part 2)

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:2)

Psalm 139 says that we have been wonderfully made and skillfully wrought by God. It goes on to say that He fashioned our days before we were even born. In other words, we have been shaped by God to be a unique creation; a vessel that He has crafted for a specific purpose.

I think even as Christians we believe this, yet we live our lives as if God did not know what He was doing. Sometimes I imagine myself as plate that God has made for a specific purpose, maybe to be used to serve others with, or maybe to carry the "Bread of Life" to those who are starving and on the verge of death. But then imagine that God has created me to be a plate, but I spend all of my life trying to re-form myself into a bowl or a vase. The obvious question is how can someone try to reshape a plate into a vase without breaking it into a hundred pieces? You can't, but sadly that's is exactly what happens when we take things into our own hands.

Lord, my desire is to be molded into Your image. Help me to submit to Your will daily, and give me the strength to live well within in the framework that You have fashioned for my life. Thank You for Your perfect will!

Shaped By God

"The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.” 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. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the Lord. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel!" (Jeremiah 18:1-6)

About 2,600 years ago, during Jeremiah's time, every village had a potter's house. It was a staple in ever community. So when God came to Jeremiah one day and told him to go down to the potter's house, it would have been like God coming to us and saying, "Go down to the corner gas station."

Jeremiah would have already been to the potter's house many times before. He was already very familiar with what happened there. So, what God was saying was, "Go down to the potter's house, Jeremiah; I want to show you some ordinary things."

When Jeremiah got there, God showed him a very ordinary thing, a pot being made, but what God revealed to him was something extraordinary. He was showing him His power to change lives.

Like a painter with a blank canvas, God sees something beautiful in us even before a single brushstroke is applied. Even more, God sees our beauty, though we are marred and broken in His hands. He is intimately at work in us both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13).

God wants to do something extraordinary in our ordinary, broken lives. He still pleads with us today saying, "Come to me, marred and broken, and let me mold you into the beautiful vessel that I have in mind for you to be."

"God help me to be moldable today. Like clay in Your hands, my desire is to be formed into a vessel, both beautiful and useable to You."

Affection Addiction

I've been doing a lot of searching lately. Over the last two days I must have listened to at least a dozen sermons. I've been searching, but I really don't know exactly what I'm looking for. The best way to put it, I guess, is I've just been searching for...more. I want to go to a deeper, more self-shattering level with God. And lately I've encountered Truth in a surprisingly fresh way. I've been thinking a lot about things I've never given much thought to in the past; things like true beauty and what it means to live out God's dream for His bride.

This all started when I recently prayed that God would give me an injection of wisdom. I'm talking the kind of wisdom that's deep and fierce. The kind that when it hits you, it knocks you off your spiritual feet. I've prayed for this several times over the last 15 years or so, and each time it's like God gets me outright addicted to His word. I'm like a crackhead trying to get a fix. Every injection both satisfies me, yet leaves me wanting more.

God has stirred my affection for Him, and I am addicted to it. When I am addicted to knowing and loving Christ well, my life is richer, my relationships are deeper, and I have a vitality that is altogether uncommon. I want to hold on to it and never let go. Now, I am jealous for the things that stir my affections for God. My hope is that I can flood my life with Christ-exalting, worship-creating things and avoid anything that would rob me of the joy and vitality that I have when God is at the center of my affections.

Heavy Grace

I don’t think people really get the grace of God. Mostly because we all accept it as one of those subjects that we can’t fully grasp this side of heaven, so we don’t put a whole lot of thought into it. It’s one of those subjects, though, that I knew if I really understood, it would shake my entire faith and perception of God.

I believe the impact of ignoring God’s grace is seen most clearly in the testimony of people who have either walked away from God or are convinced that God cannot change them. My testimony fits more into the “I can just not get it right, so why would God ever want to use me” category.

The reason why I’ve thought this way is the same reason why people end up walking away from God; they have lost their understanding of the “heaviness” of the grace of God. I use the word “heaviness,” because when you think about it, it makes you feel like you’ve pulled a mental muscle or something. It’s almost as if you think about it long enough, you have to stop, take a break, and regain your mental bearings before proceeding. It reminds me of Psalm 139 where David says, “You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it.”

To understand grace, we need to step outside of ourselves and see things from God’s perspective. A clear understanding of God’s grace demands an understanding of the price He paid on our behalf. We need to understand first and foremost that God is the offended party when it comes to this whole sin-forgiveness-reconciliation thing, not us. Keep in mind that we are the ones who have broken our end of the deal over and over, and God has every right to employ the full fury of His wrath against us....but He doesn’t.

God’s love is so deep, and He desires us so much that He recognized Man’s inability to do our part to restore our relationship with Him, and He took it upon Himself to become a man and do what’s necessary to restore it for us.

Imagine that a man brutally murders your family. All the evidence is stacked against him, and a grand jury finds him guilty of first degree murder. Now, imagine taking justice in your own hands - not by vengeance - but by fully satisfying the demands of justice by offering the only son you have left to be executed in that man’s place.

I know it doesn’t fit perfectly in every way with what God did for us (or our current legal system), but if you are just looking at it in terms of satisfying the demands of justice, there is absolutely no difference. Especially from the perspective of the innocent son who knows he’s about to die for crimes that he did not commit - crimes against his own family. I think about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane begging His Father for another way, knowing full well that this is the only way to make things right. That’s heavy grace.