Vessels of Mercy

UV 1519/10000 Vessels of Mercy
And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
Jeremiah 18 v 4

People who say that evolution is true and creation a myth are virtually saying that if you give it enough time, a pot can make itself. It can collect the required clay, shape itself and then light a fire to bake the clay. It is as good as if the pot has become so conceited, it thinks it is the potter. But the Lord has left enough evidence of His handiwork in our bodies for our bodies do not contain any element or compound except what is there in the earth. We are constituted from the earth as a cocktail of chemicals but God breathed His spirit and His life into the human. He endowed us with His qualities and His intelligence as well as creativity. Now we could form things for ourselves like houses, cities, tools and so on. But what we formed for ourselves is marred. Today, we have a lie detector but no “truth detector”. Our default mode was meant to speak the truth and that is why the body language and parameters betray us when lies are spoken. Now the default mode is marred. We have feet of clay though the Lord has given us faith, courage and confidence to soar on wings of the spirit that He breathed into us.

After our lives are marred, we cannot re-make ourselves. It is only the Lord who can redeem us. Many people think they can get salvation from their marred images and past by transformation through different methods and ways. But the Lord alone can re-make us. We need to receive salvation before we can experience transformation. We can either be marred vessels reserved for the wrath of the Lord and marked for destruction or we can be vessels of mercy to make known the riches of His glory and grace and prepared for a glorious purpose.


We cannot question the Potter for making us. We cannot blame Him for marring our lives in different ways. We can only trust Him to re-make us, reshape, mould and perfect us for His use and glory. We are not use and throw pots but “use and glow” pots. Every aspect of our lives should light up with the glory of the Lord. We are being shaped till the last day and even the last breath of our lives. We need to be flexible and not harden our hearts or minds so that we keep learning, changing, growing and developing. We cannot think that the Potter has no hands or that His hands are too short to reach and shape our lives. Our weaknesses and vulnerabilities are like leaks in the pot. The Lord will cement the leaks with His grace. We need to stop struggling with the Potter to have our own way. We can trust to Him to do that which seems good to Him in and with our lives. We were once marred vessels but now we are vessels of mercy being formed on the potter’s wheel of space and time. Each day is one turn of that wheel.

Prateep V Philip