In the Hands of the Potter

Jeremiah 18:4
And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.

Jesus is the great potter.  He keeps His hands on us, His clay, at all times.  He is in no hurry to form us according to His purposes.  He knows that He will take whatever time is necessary to get us to conform to the purposes that He has for our lives.  He will even break us, the clay, if it is necessary for Him to see us reach His chosen form.

As the clay, all we have to do is surrender to the hands of the potter on our lives.  From the point of surrender, we should have no concerns for the potter will form us perfectly.  We simply wait on the glory of our finishing.

Prayer,
Heavenly Father, we thank You that You have good and perfect plans for our lives. We thank You for Your patience as You mold us into the good and faithful servants that will stand before You one day in the image of Your Son, Jesus. We pray for the grace to surrender to the hands of Your Son on our lives.  We pray for the strength to endure through the shaping process.  May we become the perfect vessels of Your love that You created us to be.

Freedom in the Word

Galatians 5:1
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

We have all become slaves to political correctness.  We struggle to find the right words to say to others when we know they fall short of having a relationship with Jesus Christ.  In an effort to risk offending the other person, we may offer a watered down version of God’s Word.  When we do this, we do an injustice to the person we are speaking to and we do an injustice to ourselves.  There is no substitute for the perfect Word of God.  We should have faith in the power of transformation that is in the Word of God.  After all, Jesus is the Word made flesh.  The way, the truth and the life is in Him.

On the other hand, we should not become slaves to “converting” the world.  We should live our lives according to the standards of the only perfect man, Jesus Christ.  With patience and gentleness, but never with the watered down truth, we should go and make disciples for Jesus and not converts to our own view of personal correctness.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You giving us Your Holy Word and the Word made flesh, Your Son, Jesus.  We rejoice in the freedom that we receive when we live by the standards that You have provided.  We pray, Father, that You will teach us how to make disciples by first applying Your standards to our lives and then by patiently and gently sharing the truth with others.

Overcoming the Judgement of Sin

1 Peter 4:17
For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

For every man and every woman, the time of judgement will come.  There will be no comfort for those that come before the Lord on their final day still covered in the filth of their sins.  They will face endless torment.  

For those that have been washed clean of their sins by the blood of Jesus Christ, the keys to the kingdom of God will be given.  Their sins will have been judged and forgiven in advance by their Savior.  

All sin must be punished.  So those that have received the grace of salvation will be punished for their sins in this lifetime.  The Holy Spirit will reveal to us the past and current sins in our lives.  We must ask forgiveness and turn away from these sins.  Until we completely surrender to Jesus, we will suffer great trials and tribulations.  Our suffering will continue until ever element of our self reliance is slain at the Cross and we turn to the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome sin in our lives.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your loving kindness, Your mercy and Your grace in our lives.  We thank You for opening our eyes so that we may see the sin in our lives that separates us from You.  We thank You for preparing our hearts so that we could receive Your Son, Jesus, as Our Savior.  We pray that You mold our hearts, Lord, so that we fully surrender to Your Son each and every day of our lives.   Prepare us, Lord, to stand before You in the image of Your Son. 

Our Lives and Not Our Words Impact Change

1 Peter 3:1-2
Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.


God is a respecter of no man.  Therefore, what He directs to one, He directs to another.  Therefore, whatever He directs to the wives, He also directs to the husbands.  Therefore, whatever He directs to husbands and wives, He also directs for all relationships. 

What Peter is teaching us is that we do not change the lives of our mates, or others around us, by our words.  We change the lives of those around us by changing our own lives in accordance with the work of the Holy Spirit within us.  Through our new lives in Christ, and not through our words, all around us are drawn to the truth that is working within us.

As the Holy Spirit changes us, He will also change our spouses and others in our lives.  The Holy Spirit will work continuously to strengthen our marriages by making Jesus Christ the foundation of our union.  He will work continuously to open the eyes of those around us to the way, the truth and the life that is in Jesus.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the institution of marriage.  We thank You for providing us with mates who complete us in Christ.  We pray, Lord, that You will show us how to surrender our individual lives to the work of the Holy Spirit so that He can build the foundations of our marriages in Jesus Christ.

We thank You for providing us with friends and family to help build us up.  May our lives open their eyes to the wondrous work of Jesus Christ.  May He become the cornerstone of all our lives. 

Rebuke the Whisperer

Psalm 41:7
All who hate me whisper together about me; they imagine the worst for me.

Is the devil whispering in your ear?  He may sound something like this:
  • You are not good enough to minister to others.  Let someone else do it.
  • Why are you trying this?  You will fail.
  • Why would God have a place for a sinner like you?
  • You will be embarrassed if you do that.
The whispers of the devil may even come to you through the voices of those you know, you love and you trust.


We must take on the full armor of God when the enemy begins whispering defeat into our lives.  Our victory and our anointing in Christ has already been set.  We need to seize the anointing on our lives that will break off the yokes of insecurity, inferiority, fear, and unbelief.

When Satan accused Joshua, listen to how Jesus responded, “The LORD rebuke you, satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?”  Zechariah 3:2  We need to respond in the same manner every time Satan accuses us.  We cannot accept or become familiar with his attacks.  Otherwise, we will become comfortable with the lies spoken against us.  The victory is ours in the name of the Lord, Jesus.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the armor that You provide us.  We thank You that the enemy cannot lead us astray when we take on the armor of protection that is ours in our Blessed Hope and Assurance, Jesus Christ.  Thank You, Jesus, for providing our victory over all evil.  Teach us how to live our lives in victory.  Strengthen us through our faith in Your promises.

Waiting on the Fullness of His Promises

Habakkuk 2:3
For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

The prophet, Habakkuk, was frustrated that God was not dealing with the iniquities that he saw in the world around him.  He was impatient because those that he prophesied to were not responding to the Word of God.  In this scripture, the Lord reminds Habakkuk that he must be patient because the visions and promises that God gives are sure to come.

This principle applies to us and to those around us, just as it did to Habakkuk and the people around him.  In accordance with the Lord’s promises, we all are as filthy rags in the eyes of the Lord until we accept Jesus as Our Savior.  Then through the sacrifice of Our Savior, we are clothed in perfect white garments and we become wholly acceptable unto the Lord.  This transformation process requires patience.

First, we must understand that we are on a journey of sanctification that is preparing us for the time that we will stand before the Lord.  We must be patient with ourselves as we mature from the state of filthiness we were in before Christ to the state of perfection that we will be in the day we stand before the Lord.  

Second, we must understand that those around us are all in different stages of their journey.  Some have not seen the light of salvation yet.  Others have seen the light, but have not surrendered to the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives.  We must be patient with them for the Lord’s promises are always fulfilled according to His perfect timing.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your patience with us as You fulfill Your plans for our lives.  We pray that You give us the patience to wait on You as we grow spiritually and as we minister to those around us who are going through their own spiritual maturation process.  May the fullness of Your promises be complete in all of us.  





Vessels of His Presence

2 Corinthians 5:7
for we walk by faith, not by sight.

From time to time, we truly experience the exhilarating feeling of God’s presence in our lives.  These moments are precious.  These moments are important building blocks in the foundation of our faith.  These are the moments that will carry us through our daily duties and trials when we do not feel the presence of God with us.

Duty has a ring of boredom and tediousness to it.  Duty sounds like what we must do and not what we feel like doing.  This describes the duty of the flesh.

Duty unto God is totally different.  While it may be tedious at times, it is always filled with joy.  It is never boring because the Holy Spirit confirms that we are pleasing God in our work.  While duty of the flesh rarely leads to greater things, duty unto God always leads to greater fruit being borne.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the times that You allow us to experience Your presence in our lives.  We pray that You will use those moments to build our faith in You.  We pray that You will use those moments to strengthen us when our burdens are heavy and we do not feel Your presence.  We pray that we will be living vessels of those moments in Your presence so that the world around us may experience who You are.

Living and Loving in the Holy Spirit

1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.

God is love.  His love is unconditional and without end.  His love  for us is expressed explicitly through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus.  

We are able to love because God loved us first.  He created a spot in our hearts so that we could receive His love and return it to Him.  He gave us the capacity to share His love with the world around us.  He gave us the Holy Spirit so that our love could be an endless spring.

When we are living in accordance with the Holy Spirit within us, we are capable of extraordinary service to those around us.  When we try to live by the world’s standards, we will choose to serve ourselves first.  The spontaneity of our love and service will tell us where we are living.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for loving us unconditionally.  We thank You that Your love flows to us endlessly.  Prepare our hearts, Lord, so that we may become vessels of Your perfect love.  Cleanse us, Lord, of anything in our hearts that would restrict the flow of Your love in our lives.  May we bear much fruit for Your kingdom through the spontaneous release of Your love to the world around us.

The God of "What’s Left"

Daniel 4:14-15
He proclaimed aloud and said thus: ‘Chop down the tree and lop off its branches, strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit. Let the beasts flee from under it and the birds from its branches. But leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze, amid the tender grass of the field.

King Nebuchadnezzar was at ease in his house and prospering greatly.  In his own words, the Most High God had blessed him in every way.  But because of Nebuchadnezzar’s unrighteousness and iniquities, it was all taken away from him.  The Most High God, who had provided it all to Nebuchadnezzar, allowed it all to be taken away.  Ultimately, when Nebuchadnezzar turned his eyes back to the the Lord, all was returned to the King.

In the scripture above, King Nebuchadnezzar is the tree.  God commands that the tree be stripped of all branches, leaves and fruit.  But as the God of all mercy stripped everything away from the tree, he left a stump from which the tree could rise again.

Almighty God is not only the God of all provision, He also the God of all loss.  No loss can occur in our lives without God allowing it.  But our merciful Lord, who is filled with lovingkindness, is also the God of “what’s left”.  So no matter what we are going through, or have gone through, God has commanded that something be left from which He can raise us up according to His perfect plans for our lives.  (Today’s teaching taken from a sermon by Jentezen Franklin)

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for every provision in our lives.  We give You all the glory and the praise for Your grace and lovingkindness.  Teach us, Lord, how to give you all the glory and praise when we are experiencing loss in our lives. Build up our faith so that we may endure while You raise us up from “what is left” in our lives to the good and perfect place that You have planned for us.

A Higher Place for the Faint of Heart

Jeremiah 31:25
For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.

What a tremendous promise we have from the Lord.  The promise was first spoken to draw the Jews out of bondage back to their homelands and back to Himself.  

The promise still holds true for all of us today as the Lord encourages us with His extraordinary promise to give us the strength that we need to break away from all the bondage in our lives.  He gives us the spiritual inspiration that we need to renew our devotion to Him when it is lagging.  He calls  us to live in a higher place – a place where His presence brings us complete comfort, peace and satisfaction.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for drawing us to Yourself and providing all that we need to make the journey.  We pray that You raise up in us the desire to join You, bringing with us the fullness of love and devotion that You seek from us.  Lift us up, Lord, to a higher place – a place that we cannot reach without You.