God Wants His Best for You — E.A. Johnston

Many years ago, when I was a younger man, my wife and I were married in the small mountain town of Hot Springs, Arkansas. And while we were there on our honeymoon, we visited an old-fashioned pottery store where you'd pick out a coffee mug or a bowl that you liked in the gift shop, then you would be taken to the back of the store to a workshop where the owner of the shop would sit at a pottery wheel, and you would stand there and watch him make that item as he formed it out of a lump of clay.

He would stretch it and smooth it and shape it as that wheel turned round and round, making a new thing. For years, I had my morning coffee out of that mug made by the potter that special, memorable day.

The Potter and the Clay in Jeremiah 18

In the book of Jeremiah, in chapter 18, we read about the potter and the clay. The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.

Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he wrought a work on the wheels, and the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter, so he made it again. Another vessel has seemed good to the potter to make it.

I will stop there, friends. As a parent, you want the very best for your children, why, you'll sacrifice just about anything to ensure you can help them to become the best they can be in life. God the Father wants us to be the best we can be for our usefulness and for his glory.

God's Power to Restore What Sin Has Marred

But life happens, sin happens, events happen that shape us and bend us in the wrong way and tries we may to straighten ourselves out. Often it's a lost cause, it's beyond us, but what we cannot do, God can.

He can make us better if we truly desire for that change. It is when we stop fighting him in his will for us and we get to the place in our life where we are willing to yield ourselves to his perfect will for us and we submit to those potter's hands for our own good and for his own glory.

A lump of clay can often be too stiff to work with or you could have a stone in it that needs to be removed before it can be placed back on the wheel to be made again. I want to share a story with you, friends, that's always meant a lot to me.

F.B. Meyer's Hidden Area of Resistance

It's about the British minister F .B. Meyer where he told of an event in his life that changed his entire ministry. He'd been an average pastor until he met C .T. Studd and he saw something in the young man that he didn't have.

It was the reality of Christ in the life. And he asked C .T. Studd how to get what he had and he asked F .B. Meyer a question. He said, have you given yourself right up to God? And F .B. Meyer winced for there was an area in his life he had kept back from God.

Well, here now, friends, are the words of F .B. Meyer relating his experience. There was one point where my will was entrenched. I thought I would do something with Christ that night which would settle it one way or the other.

I knelt in my room and gave Christ the ring of my will with the keys on it but kept one little key back, the key of a closet in my heart, in one back story in my heart. And he said to me, are they all here?

And I said, all but one. What is that, said he. It is the key of a little cupboard, said I, in which I've got something which thou needest not interfere with. It is mine. Then, as he put the keys back into my hand, he seemed to be gliding away to the door.

He said, my child, if you cannot trust me with all, you do not trust me at all. I cried, stop, and he seemed to come back. And holding the little key in my hand, in thought I said, I cannot give it but if thou will take it, thou shall have it.

He took it, and within a month from that time he had cleared out that little cupboard of things. Well, that's the end of his story, friends. And that brings us back to our text of the potter and the clay.

Yielding Completely to God's Will

Am I ready to ask God to put me upon his will and make me again? Am I ready to yield myself to him? He does the work. I do the yielding. Let me ask you, friend, are you ready to get serious with God and turn yourself entirely over to him in his will for your life?

A Prayer to Become a Vessel for God's Glory

God wants only his very best for us. Let us pray. Great God in heaven, I come to you now in the name of the dear son Jesus, who shed his blood on Calvary for a sinner like me. My life has come short of what I wanted to be in you, Lord.

I want you to be the best. I want to be the best. I can be all the time for you, Lord. Jesus, make me the best I can be so you can use me more. Oh, Lord, I want to do great things for you. I want you to do great things through me.

I'm a marred piece of clay, marred by sin, scarred by life, spoiled by self. Put me upon your potter's will and smooth out the rough areas of my life that hinder my usefulness to thee. Bend me, shape me, and fashion me into a fit instrument that you can use for your glory.

I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.