Life Is Going To Pot

I’ve been thinking…   Life Is Going To Pot.

Are you dissatisfied with an area of your life?  Perhaps your career isn’t going as expected, maybe your family relations aren’t what they should be, your relationship with God might even be lacking, or the state of your health is worrisome.  Do you think that your life is going to pot?  Well, I agree – it is. 

Suffering Job asked almost a continuous stream of questions like: “Is this what my life will end like?  Why is this happening to me?” and “I think you made a mistake, God!”  He finally comes to an understanding in Job 42:2,3 when he prays, “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”  Job recognizes that God is in charge of his life and all these questions were asked in ignorance of God’s control… what Bible scholars call Sovereignty.   

But how does God exercise His sovereign control over each of us?  The Bible gives us the example of the potter… making pots to accomplish roles that he has decided for them.   

“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?  Isaiah 45:9 (ESV)  

Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?  Romans 9:21 (ESV)  

So, I’ve been thinking that the goal of my life is to be good malleable clay in the hands of my sovereign Lord.  I should confess my stubborn sins of pride, lust for power, and desire for position, and surrender my every moment to His control… after all, He does know what He’s doing. 

If I consider my life as a process where God is forming me into the pot He wants me to be… my goal is then to have my life literally “going to pot.”  The pot God wants for me.  The uses God wants to put me to.  

Then, even if my life/pot is one that from my perspective is average, I can be assured it is the life God desires me to live… and I want to live this life to His glory and praise. 

Paul was explaining this to young, first-time pastor Timothy when he wrote, “Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.”  2 Timothy 2:20–21 (ESV)  

It is in this context of walking through life as a surrendered lump of clay ready and willing for God to use in any way He sees fit that verses like these make sense. 

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.  Romans 8:28 (ESV)  

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  Galatians 2:20 (ESV)  

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,   James 1:2 (ESV)  

No matter what the specific circumstances of our lives may be, if we are walking the path the Lord has asked us to walk, and serving Him with faithful obedience, our lives are being formed by the great potter/master into the pots He desires us to be. 

And what does that pot look like – the pot that God wants for each of us? 

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.  Colossians 3:5–10 (ESV)  

Do you want to live a life where you are being formed into the image of a pot that looks like Christ to those around you?  Let’s not be pots in the image of the sinful world we live in – let’s have lives that are going to pot – a pot that looks like Christ.   

The master potter wants to make you into a pot that’s a self-portrait.  Does your pot of a life look like God?  Then no matter what happens, we know the Lord/potter is in control.   

I want my life to go to that pot… yes indeed!

Think about it….

I'VE BEEN THINKING... We Don't Need Common Sense

Looking around at the world situation it occurs to me that the last thing this place needs is “common sense.”  The vast majority of sense doesn’t seem to be very good.  The thought processes that represent the common view, common perspective, or common acceptance don’t seem to be serving our communities very well at all.

I’ve been thinking that, as Christians, we are supposed to possess the opposite of “common” sense – we need “uncommon” sense.  When I was a kid and trying to get my folks’ permission to do something or go somewhere, I would fall back to what I thought was an unarguable standard, “But, all the guys are doing it.”  My Mom or Dad would quickly retort, “If all the guys jumped off a bridge, would you? Just because they’re all doing something stupid doesn’t mean you have to!”   

But today it seems that if everyone (or at least the majority of people) decide that jumping off the bridge is a good idea, we’re all supposed to happily follow – without asking any questions.  What has become “common,” everyday, majority sense might not be such a good idea for Christians desiring to live righteously in our communities. 

The spiritual sense of Ephesians 4:1–3 (ESV) is not a very common sense.   I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. I don’t even find much of this kind of sense being lived out inside common churches today. 

Our communities, even our church communities, are more closely following the “common” sense of “if you’re wronged – get even” or “if someone says something bad about me – I’ll return the favor” or “I’m not going to be that religious – people may think I’m weird”… “nobody else takes the things of God that seriously – why should I?” 

It sounds a lot like when I was a kid, “I won’t believe that, or do that, because nobody else is… it’s not the common sense thing to do.”  The almost mocking words come back, “Just because everybody is jumping off (or away from) the uncommon sense of the “Christian-faith” bridge doesn’t mean you have to.”   

Ephesians 4:14-16 tells Christians not to think that way, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.  

But, if I want to do the righteous thing instead of the common thing… live a life giving glory to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ… how do I do that? 

Again, Ephesians gives us the direction, Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.  (Ephesians 4:17-24) 

Just because the majority of our culture agrees that a lifestyle of sin is acceptable or even cool, it doesn’t mean that we should follow the “futility of their minds – darkened in their understanding.”  Christians need to be “renewed in the spirit of our minds and put on the new self of righteousness and holiness.”  That’s not common but it is the course of action pleasing to the living God.   I’ve been thinking about… 

Taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ… We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

(2 Corinthians 10:5)

Putting on the mind of Christ… The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

(1 Corinthians 2:14–16)  

Having the mind of Christ and taking every thought in life captive to obey Him may not be “common” sense, but it makes “uncommon” sense to me.     

Think about it….