Live to Love Scripture Encouragement Romans 9.21

Romans 9:21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? Yes, He does! Certainly at some point in your life, you have played with play dough or drawn or painted a picture. You could do what you wished with it, and you did. That’s what was expected. That was the plan. Do what you wish to express yourself. Paul appealed to his readers’ common sense reasoning. The molded thing has no rights. Period. The molder, the artist, the maker can do whatever he decides with the clay. I made two different clay mugs in Japan years ago. As yet, neither of them has had anything to say to me about their design or purpose. They didn’t exist—except in my imagination. I was given a blob of clay, which I divided, then formed into two mugs, according to my own purpose as the potter. The mugs have never and won’t ever question me about their purpose or my dealings with them. Nor will Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Esau, Pharaoh, or you or me. My, how important we think we are. How entitled and self-important sin has made us. If God has revealed Christ to you and through you, then you have been created for the purpose of glorifying God by being satisfied/filled with the love of God so you can live to love with Jesus. Let us be encouraged that although we are nothing more than clay in His hands, we have been created for honorable use. Here’s how Paul said it to the Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 4:7, 10-11 “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” Father, thank You for placing the life of Your Son, Jesus, in our weak bodies, that the surpassing greatness of Your power might be seen today. Magnify Your name! Acknowledgment: Music from “Carried by the Father” by Eric Terlizzi. www.ericterlizzi.com