As I continued following the Lord’s leading into the Book of Jeremiah He took me to a place that I have camped in a time or two. Each time I read through it He has shown me more and more of the relevancy of what He told Jeremiah for His Son’s bride today. It is so easy to forget that the Word of God never changes and was true yesterday, is today and will be tomorrow. It goes forth from Him and will not return void, it will accomplish the very purpose for which it was sent.
In the 18th chapter of Jeremiah, God showed to the prophet His absolute power in disposing of the nations. Yet when I read it again this past week He showed me in that awesome power He is also a passionate artist; in and through Him we are perfectly and wonderfully made. However, even though the design was planted in our mother’s womb, becoming what He created us to be is a process and it takes time. And that means time spent on the wheel.
Jer 18:1-2 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 2 Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.
When I think of the Potter’s house I have this mental picture of what it looks like, but the Lord reminded me that He didn’t need a shop to begin His craftsmanship.
Gen 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
It was in the Garden of Eden that He began His work. When you think of God as an artist you get the picture that His purpose, like the potter, is to make something beautiful. But God goes beyond that because He wants to make something beautiful into something “useful.” Consider Paul’s words to the Romans:
Rom 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
And in his letter to the church at Ephesus:
Eph 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
In the beginning God designed us to become conformed (summorphos; fashioned like) into the image of His Son. He called us his workmanship (poiema; his fabric), a word from which we get our word “poem.” We are the dust and the fabric that He used to bring something beautiful into this world. But we are to become more than something beautiful in His eyes; we are to become useful in His hands.
2Tim 2:21b … he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.
And that process takes place on the potter’s wheel, God’s wheel.
Jer 18:3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.
When we look at the process the potter uses and the procedures he employs we get the feeling that the wheel he has the clay sitting on is “spinning out of control.” It’s just like our circumstances that so often seem to be completely out of control. But in the hands of our Potter the wheel is His tool whereupon He applies the pressure of His hands.
Rom 5:3-5 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; 4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope: 5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
The wheel represents the path of our circumstances; the fingers of God pushing and pulling on the clay as it submits to His craftsmanship.
Jer 18:4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
He began with clay, a substance that is composed of 93 elements, the very same 93 elements found in our bodies today. But at the outset in The Garden it was just dust, and so it represents us in our state before we put ourselves in The Potter’s hands; common, worldly. But in His eyes what starts out as an individual lump has a future destiny in His hands. What was once common and worthless has become priceless to Him; purchased with a heavy price on the Cross.
In His hands He looks at the common earthen vessel He created and notices all the imperfections, the spots, wrinkles and blemishes. But when that common vessel is firmly planted on His wheel and in His hands His power takes it and begins to apply the pressure of His fingers; the trials and tribulations found on the wheel. His objective is to make it again another vessel. This is the place beyond our salvation where we begin the process of being spiritually reshaped and rebuilt. This is our sanctification – the betrothal period of the bride. This is where — if we submit to The Potter’s hands — we will become all that He originally created us to be. This is the “poem” He has written for each of our lives. It is the poem that can only be recited on the wheel of our circumstances as we submit to the spinning and the pressure of shaping by His fingers and hands.
Just as the potter Jeremiah watched applied pressure to his lump of clay so does God apply the pressure that shapes and molds us. In His eyes we are already something “beautiful,” but He has so much more planned for us, which involves making us into something useful. And in the process He hears us when we cry out under the pressure of becoming more than we think we can ever be.
Ps 4:1 Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.
But God, in His mercy, created us out of a material that is pliable. We can be molded, shaped and conformed into the image of His Son — we can be enlarged. We can become the pure bride that Jesus is coming to receive and make His wife. This is what being made again another vessel is all about.
Jer 18:4 … as seemed good to the potter to make it.
If we, as the bride of Christ, are to become that vessel we are going to have to let The Potter do the shaping as it seems good to Him to make it. That means we have to stay on the wheel no matter how fast it spins and no matter how much pulling and pushing The Potter does. Only He knows what the finished product is to look like because it was in His eyes that we were designed, and only if we stay on the wheel — because we love Him — will we begin to see our vessel be reshaped.
1Cor 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
And He is the only one who knows when it’s time to take us off the wheel.
1Cor 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
These temptations (periasmos; trying, putting to the proof, discipline) are The Potter’s way of seeing how far along in the process we have come, what parts need reinforcing and what parts need polishing. At the same time when the pressure eases and the wheel slows down for a time we also are able to view the progress that has been made. Sanctification is a process, it’s not just “a step” along the way. Fortunately for us, God is not only a “passionate” artist, He is a “patient” artist.
God has an incredible plan for His Son’s bride; all she has to do is boldly come into the Potter’s house and by faith allow Him to put her up on the wheel. And because He knows how hard it is to hang on when the wheel begins to spin He has given her a way to remain firmly planted until the process is finished; His Word, His grace and the power of His Spirit.
The bride of Christ is perfectly and wonderfully made in His eyes. Jesus sees her as precious and pure. How can we look into His eyes and not want to become all that He sees. He has paid an incredible price for us; can we not sit one hour with Him on the wheel? Can we not allow ourselves to be taken off the wheel and put into the oven? Can we not allow ourselves to be taken from the oven and set on the shelf for a time to allow all that He has created cool into a strong, solid vessel for His use?
As Paul said, it’s our “reasonable service.” What an understatement. Our reasonable service to allow our Creator to shape us into all that His poem said we are to be! That is a poem I want the bridegroom to read one day when He has come to take me by the hand. In the meantime I will continue the process and be content no matter where I am … on the wheel, in the oven or on the shelf. After all, I’m in The Potter’s hands and only He knows what I don’t yet see.