Jump Start # 827

Jeremiah 18:8 “If that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.”

Our passage introduces two interesting concepts for us. God told Jeremiah to visit a pottery shop. There he saw the potter working on a new piece. Hands dirty from clay, potter’s wheel spinning, he watched him shape a lump of clay into something useful. As he watched, something wasn’t right. The potter made a mistake. He wasn’t pleased with how his work was turning out. So he smashed it into a lump again and started over. That happens. The clay is easy to reshape.

As Jeremiah is watching the potter, God speaks to him. This is where our verse is found. The illustration of the clay being changed and reshaped was not about pottery 101, but about God’s dealing with His people. God would punish nations that no longer walked with him, especially His people. God’s plans might be to bring a nation down. Before those plans came about, that nation might turn. They may repent. They may stop doing evil. What happens then? Are they destined to be destroyed because God planned that? No! If a nation changed, God would change. Jonah’s preaching to Nineveh is an example of this. The message from Jonah is that God would destroy them unless they repented. They turned and repented. God held his judgment against them.

Neat history lesson. There is more here for us.

1. God’s plans can be changed. They are not set in concrete. They are actually based upon the heart of the people that they are directed towards. This is one reason why we pray. Pray can change things. Pray can even change the heart of God. Don’t think I can do as I please, and once in a while throw in a quick prayer, just to cover my bases and keep God off my back, and to keep things going my way. That’s not what is happening in Jeremiah. That is not how God responds. He knows. He knows our heats. He knows how serious we are. He knows if we are playing a game, just mouthing words, or are seriously dedicating ourselves to His ways.

Prayer works. Prayer is powerful. This is why we pray for the sick. We pray that God will change and improve the health of one we love. We pray in difficult times because we know that God can help us be safe. Prayer works. Prayer can changes things, because God can change.

2. God’s view of a nation can change. God’s view of a person can change. In the N.T. we call this forgiveness. A wicked person, an evil person, a bad person is that way not from birth, but from poor choices that they make in life. Such a person can see the bad that they have done and feel remorse for those things. He can beg to the God of Heaven to forgive him. He can come to know Christ, turn his life around, be baptized and begin a new and better life. Is it too late? Is he stuck on a dead end street? No. God can change how He views such a person. The prodigal was considered “dead” by his father. When he returned home, the son was “alive.”

How does God view you? Have you messed up? Have you ruined things? It may be too late to change what you did, but it’s not too late for God to change how he sees you. This is why the Gospel message is preached. There is hope. There is forgiveness. God can change how He views you. You are not destined, stuck, or unable to get off the train wreck. The potter didn’t like what he was making, so he started over. Same lump of clay. He reshaped it. He worked at it. He made something that was useful and good.

That’s what the Gospels do to us. They reshape us and mold us into something useful and good. Without God, we tend to be selfish and arrogant. We think we have it all figured out. We do pretty good, we think, without God. It doesn’t take long to see that kind of thinking doesn’t work. It’s time to smash all of that and start over. It’s time to be reshaped into something useful and good.

Isaiah uses the image of the potter and clay. There God is the potter. We are the clay. God is shaping us. If  you have ever had some play-dough around the house, you know if the lid isn’t put on tight, it hardens and cannot be shaped any longer. It’s hard to work with calloused, hard and stubborn wills. Know-it-alls tend to make life difficult for others. Our attitudes determine how pliable we are to God and His word. Wrong attitudes can lead to hearts that are hard and difficult to reshape. A person who is willing to come after Jesus and “learn from Me,” has the soft heart that can be shaped and molded into the image that God wants.

Are you allowing the word of God to shape you? Are you looking more and more like Jesus? Or, is it time for the potter to smash you and start over?

Pray can change God. God’s word can change us. We want God to change for us. Are we willing to change for God? Something to chew on today…

Roger