This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord : “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord . “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.
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| unknown metal item found in Derbyshire near Stanage Edge. |
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| unknown metal item found in Derbyshire near Stanage Edge. |
The first book of the Bible, Genesis, tells us God made man. It says God took a bit of the dirt and made man. Sounds a bit like a potter making a bit of pottery. So Jeremiah's illustration is more reality than analogy.
God as our creator has all the creative copyrights reserved.
And can not God match us to our purpose and his need. Who are we to talk back to our maker?
Before the final firing potter’s clay is able to be reworked, and completely repurposed. So isn't God saying that he's still not finished with us.
Here are some thoughts about the implications of God as our maker.
- God has complete say over our purpose.
- God has the right to judge our performance in light of his purpose for us.
- God has no obligation to the one he created.
- There is no higher law, rule, say or purpose than God's.
- God is not working for someone, he had made us for himself.
- No other thing made by God is in a position to judge God's purposes for something he made for himself.
- Usefulness, beauty, functionality, durability are some of the possible values that God may have for his creation but ultimately it is for God alone to determine.
- Works in progress before the firing can be remade.
- God is Sovereign.
God is the first and final word over his own creation.
We are God's creation.
Therefore God is the first and final word over us.
Our role is to do what we were made for.
Do you know what you were made for?
Do you know why God has made you?
Does he look at you and see a product he'd be happy to fire in the kiln?
Are you going around in circles? Spinning around?
Let God mold you to his will. Recognise his superior position.
Do you know why God has made you?
Does he look at you and see a product he'd be happy to fire in the kiln?
Are you going around in circles? Spinning around?
Let God mold you to his will. Recognise his superior position.
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Isaiah 29:16 NIV
You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “You did not make me”? Can the pot say to the potter, “You know nothing”?
Isaiah 45:9 NIV
“Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker, those who are nothing but potsherds among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘The potter has no hands’?
Isaiah 64:8 NIV
Yet you, Lord , are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.
Romans 9:21 NIV
Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
