The Potter and the Clay

Handcrafted pottery has a special beauty and value to it. You may remember from your childhood coming home from school and proudly presenting to your parents a clay plant pot or some other useful item, or ornament that you had made. Jane and myself still have some of these items in a box in the loft that our children made. All of these would never sell in a shop but because they had been crafted for you by someone who loved you, they became treasures to be admired and often had prime place on display.
It is a beautiful analogy that the bible uses as God as the potter and us as the clay. Of course like an expert potter it takes great care, time and skill to create a perfect masterpiece. Sometimes the potter even has to start again. Sometimes the process looks hard and if the clay could speak it might want to complain, but the potter has in his mind’s eye what is needed to create that masterpiece and He is delighted with it!
As God’s Children, saved through Jesus’ death and resurrection, born again and filled with the Holy Spirit, God’s creative work is to make you afresh into his masterpiece that he has begun “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5 v 17 But what does that look like in our lives today?

What is shaping you? In Romans 12 v 2 we are told not to conform to the worlds values but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We live in a culture that increasingly has different values to our faith values and the pressure coming from outside is to conform or fit in with our culture which shapes our outlook and the way we live out our faith. However, God wants to shape us from outside with his Word and inside by the Holy Spirit. Together like the Potters hands and his tools, these things are shaping and transforming us from the inside out into becoming the beautiful new creation that God is making us to be. But Let’s remember we are all a work in progress, and masterpieces are made over time and with great love and care. With love.

Pastor Mark