Crackpot or cracked-pot?
June 30, 2017
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Jeremiah 18: 1-17
At the Potter’s House
18 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 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.
5 Then the word of the Lord came to me. 6 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. 7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 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.
11 “Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a planagainst you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’ 12 But they will reply, ‘It’s no use. We will continue with our own plans; we will all follow the stubbornness of our evil hearts.’”
13 Therefore this is what the Lord says:
“Inquire among the nations:
Who has ever heard anything like this?
A most horrible thing has been done
by Virgin Israel.
14 Does the snow of Lebanon
ever vanish from its rocky slopes?
Do its cool waters from distant sources
ever stop flowing?
15 Yet my people have forgotten me;
they burn incense to worthless idols,
which made them stumble in their ways,
in the ancient paths.
They made them walk in byways,
on roads not built up.
16 Their land will be an object of horror
and of lasting scorn;
all who pass by will be appalled
and will shake their heads.
17 Like a wind from the east,
I will scatter them before their enemies;
I will show them my back and not my face
in the day of their disaster.”
“Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand…” (verse 6b)
There are many who suggest that Christians are crack-pots.
No! More accurately, we can be described as “cracked-pots”!
Yet, fractured crockery is still worth something.
It may not be perfect, may not fetch the best price.
But, neither is it worthless.
In the hands of a craftsman, it can be restored,
made beautiful, useful, and valued again.
Prayer
You created the world by Your word of command, LORD.
You took some earth and breathed life into it, forming man, and then woman.
Into Your hands I give my being,
marred by selfishness,
torn at the corners,
worn down by life’s low punches.
Take me and remake me.
Mould me and reshape me.
Fashion me in the image of Christ,
that I may honour Him with every fibre of my being. Amen.
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