Will the clay say to the potter, 'What are you doing?'
(Isaiah 45:9 – NASB)
Inside the boundaries God has set for you is where the power of God is in your life. Inside the boundaries are the blessings. When you are buffeted for your faults take it patiently, it is God allowing you to get back in bounds (1 Peter 2:20). He lets you see the rough spots, in order that He might smooth them out. Would you rather He didn’t prop you up, and let you fall? A player can make the greatest leaping catch in the history of sport, but if he is out of bounds, it doesn’t count for a score.
Also, don’t complain if He is making you a cookie jar when you want to be a coffee pot, you will get marred and will be discarded for a season, until He can work with you. Clay is a humble piece of earth, but formed in the Master’s hands, and tried in the fires of the kiln, it becomes an instrument meet for the Master’s use. You cannot work with a vessel that won’t hold anything. It is not the vessel that is significant it is what it is carrying. We are only milk cartons, and without any milk, no matter how pretty our carton is, what good are we? When the waiter brings our food, are we concerned about its appearance and taste, or do we remark upon how lovely the plate is? Be grateful that as jars of clay we get to carry this treasure (2 Corinthians 4:7 – NIV).
Part of your problem is that you are resisting Him, and any disobedience is just that, resisting God, and you are blocking His voice. What He is trying to do in your life, which is making you more like Christ, this is what brings power and perspective. No, everything won’t always be smooth sailing, but when you are becoming like Christ you see your troubles through different eyes, and you have less troubles because you don’t have to have the troubles that come by your own fouling up. Focus on the rewards of diligent, faithful obedience, which is fellowship with God, and this sees you through. Pray to let God do His work unhindered by you. If you stay within the boundaries God will let you see beyond them (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).
5 comments:
This was taken from a previous post from 8-23-06 and reposted on 4-28-09, but now includes the audio in our SermonAudio files, which has additional material in it...we will be doing this with many of our older posts, so that they can have the audio attached to them and be archived at SermonAudio...hope these are edifying and enjoyable for you...God bless...
One more major advantage of reposting these articles is that by placing them on SermonAudio, they now become part of our DAILY PODCAST...!
From our SermonAudio homepage, click the orange “xml/podcast” button for xml, iTunes, or Microsoft Zune.
sigh...spam once again...
Look, it may NOT have been spam, per se, but when someone leaves vague coments about liking a post and then places a link to some product, then, well, it IS spam even if not done by a robot, etc....
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