February 20, 2015
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

The Potter's Final Offer

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Opening Prayer

Gracious Father, I am praising and thanking, watching and waiting, longing and listening, for You, You alone.

Read Jeremiah 18:1-17

[1] 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 plan against 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.”

Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reflect

“You need to open your hearts in faith. The hands of the great Potter are for you now. They are such eager, skillful, loving hands, those pierced hands of the divine Craftsman…working all our blunderings and defeats into the final symmetry of his complete and perfect will” (James S. Stewart, 1896-1990). What a wonderful promise!

The hearts of God’s people were stubborn and evil (12), and God piled message after message, metaphor after metaphor to make them realize their condition and return to God. This time he compares himself to a potter in whose hands Judah was clay (6). The potter has absolute control over the clay; he can shape it or throw it away. Judah is a marred pot in his hands. Yet, God offers to remake Judah, if only Judah would cooperate and repent. If not, terrible disaster awaited.

Like a grieving father, God complains about Judah’s inexcusable disloyalty and rebellion. It had forgotten God (cf. Deut. 6:12), the source of all its blessings, and pursued the popular idols of surrounding nations (15). Judah repeatedly turned away from God, despite his compassion and many blessings. What do you do with such extreme hardness of heart? Would God throw away the faulty clay, after repeated attempts to redeem it? No: God still reaches out with mercy (cf. Hos. 11:8). He warns Judah of impending doom from the Potter’s hands–and appeals with the tender heart of the Potter who loves the clay and does not want to throw it away. He pleads with Judah to turn away from evil, to “reform your ways and your actions” (11).

History tells us that, sadly, Judah turned away from God. God was forced to turn his back on them. No longer were they able to talk about God’s face and the blessings and peace that came from that face (Num. 6:24-26). Thankfully the story does not end there. If sin is stubborn, God is even more stubbornly loving, for he paid the greatest sacrifice when he sent his Son to die on the cross for us (1 John 4:9). The Potter’s hands were wounded so that the clay can be saved. This is the final offer from the Potter.

Apply

Make a list of people who, in your opinion, are beyond redemption because of their long disobedience. Pray for them.

Closing prayer

Father, I praise You for Your stubborn love. Your hands were wounded, that I might be saved. You are the Potter, and I am the clay.

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