Thursday, July 22: Discarded pottery

It is difficult to drink from a cup with a crack or hole in it. If the crack is on the side, the liquid drips all over you. If there is a hole in the bottom, even if that hole is very small, it doesn’t take long for all of the liquid to drain from the cup. In the same manner, we are vessels for the Lord:


that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,
1 Thessalonians 4:4


God does not use a dirty vessel. If there is unrepentant sin in your life, you need to be clean before you are ready to serve the Lord. Aimee Semple McPherson, a pioneer for using multimedia in evangelism, had an extramarital affair, faked her own death as a cover, and later died from an overdose of barbiturates. Ted Haggard, founder of a mega-church in Colorado and leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, was caught in a homosexual affair, and requested for the hustler to bring illegal drugs to their tryst. Sadly, the list of pastors and teachers who have stumbled is long: Paul Crouch, Jim and Tammy Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Lonnie Frisbee, etc. Just because a person has the gift of teaching does not exclude them from the temptations of sin. Additionally, pride can stumble those who begin to believe they are above rebuke. God doesn’t need the greatest preacher or teacher, as He gave the gift. He easily can raise someone else up in their places. In the same manner that a cracked drinking vessel cannot hold water, a sinful vessel cannot hold Living Water!


Yet God knows that we are sinners, and doesn’t desire for us to be broken pieces of pottery, cast away, never to be used again. In Job 2:8, Job uses a broken piece of pottery, called a potsherd, to scrape the boils from his skin. In the most prophetic psalm of Jesus on the cross, Jesus says:


My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
And My tongue clings to My jaws;
You have brought Me to the dust of death.
Psalm 22:15


On the cross, while Jesus was enduring the greatest pain imaginable for our benefits, He felt like He was all used up, like a discarded piece of pottery. Without God, we are all potsherds. Satan has used us for his deceitful plans and his benefit. Without serving God, even unknowingly, we serve God’s enemy, the one who has been given dominion over the earth for a time. Yet those of us as believers, who found ourselves discarded from the world, lying in the dirt and dust, were rescued by the Master Potter. He took that old discarded and broken clay and melded it back together. Previously filled with cracks and holes, we are now capable of being filled by Him with Living Water.

Don’t lose sight of the fact that your vessel still can sustain cracks, but those can be filled by your repentance and His forgiveness. We are on this earth to share God’s love with others. Why would God use a dirty vessel? Simply be reading the newspapers about the pastors who have fallen into temptation, we can understand how Satan continues to battle by trying to destroy the testimony of God’s people. Be aware of the battle that he fights, as it certainly is not a new or original strategy. Possess your vessel in holiness by honoring the Lord with your life and your life’s work!


I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind;
I am like a broken vessel.
Psalm 31:12