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When the Potter Is for Us

A devotional by John Piper for reading on March 12th

“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?” ( Isaiah 45:9 9 Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? )

The majesty of God is magnified when we see him through the lens of creation out of nothing. He commands nothingness, and it obeys and becomes something.

Out of nothing he makes the clay, and out of the clay he makes us — the pottery of the Lord ( Isaiah 45:9 9 Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? ) — his possession, destined for his glory, in total dependence on him.

“Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture” ( Psalms 100:3 3 Know ye that Jehovah, he is God: It is he that hath made us, and we are his; We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. ). It is a humbling thing to be a sheep and a pot that belong to somebody else.

There is another amazing statement about God’s majesty, which, when you put it together with God’s absolute power and rights as Creator, explodes with good news for us.

Isaiah 33:21 21 But there Jehovah will be with us in majesty, a place of broad rivers and streams, wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. ! It says, “The Lord in majesty will be for us!”

For us! For us! The Creator is for us and not against us. With all the power in the universe and with absolute right to do as he pleases with what he made — he is for us!

“No eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him” ( Isaiah 64:4 4 For from of old men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen a God besides thee, who worketh for him that waiteth for him. ). “If God is for us, who can be against us?” ( Romans 8:31 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God `is' for us, who `is' against us? ).

Can you think of anything (I mean anything) that is more comforting and assuring and delighting than that the Lord in his majesty is for you?



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