Word for the Day November 9
By: Evang. Cascille Hammack
"This is the word that came to Jeremiah
from the LORD: "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you My message." So I went down
to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 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. Then the word of the LORD came to
me: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Like clay in
the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel." Jeremiah 18: 1-6
We are as clay on the wheel and the Lord is the potter.
Isaiah 64:8 says, "But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work
of thy hand." Isaiah 64:8 As His children, we submit our lives to Him for He knows the end from the beginning.
Isaiah 46:10 says, "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say:
My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please." We trust the Lord, in holy submission with our lives.
Sometimes we can not understand what He is doing until we look back and can see His purpose. Faith is trust.
Even when we do not understand the circumstances, when we have given Him our lives we fully trust Him. We know
what He said is true in Romans 8:28, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who
have been called according to His purpose." Many times, trials will come when we are fully submitted to the Potter
and are the clay in His hands. When the clay is being formed on the wheel, there is pressure to mold it into shape.
After it is formed, it is put in the fire to make it strong. The pressure and the fire of the trials
we face, as we are in His hands, are explained in 1 Peter 1:7, "These have come so that your faith--of greater worth
than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when
Jesus Christ is revealed."
The
Lord instructed us in Proverbs 3:5,6, "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight." He explains to us in Isaiah 55:8,9 "For
My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." We are not to cleave to the things of
the dust, our hearts are to return to the Lord. We are to stay on the wheel as He shapes us into a vessel fit for use
in His hands. We can not mold ourselves, only He can form us into the vessel He wills, fit for His use. Isaiah
45:9 warns, "Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter, 'What are you making?' Does your work say, 'He has no hands'?" Romans 9:20 says,
"But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, 'Why did you make
me like this?"
We are to surrender our will to the
Lord. Clay on the potter's wheel is in full submission to the hands that are forming it. We are to submit our
will to Him. He promises in Isaiah 55:7, "Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn
to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon." The prayer from our
heart is to be the prayer Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:10, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven."