The power, we have in us, is not ours, but God’s.
“When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (ESV Gen 2,5-7)
In the beginning, there was no water, but God sent rain. He made a mist go up from the land.
He formed man of dust from the ground, and he breathed in his nose, so the man became a living creature.
We are dust, we are nothing without God. We’re dependent of Him. We need the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” (John 6,63)
Adam and Eve listened to the devil and disobeyed God, and then they were separated from God. He wasn’t close to them anymore. It’s not good to be separated from God – the Creator and source of life.
God wants his children in hands, so he can take care of them and form and shape them according to his good will and plans.
God is like a potter
In Jeremiah 18, we read that God’s people were clay in his hands. They chose wickedness instead of God’s goodness. They followed their own plans and hard hearts. They were like cups with busy legs. They forgot God. They stumbled on their paths, and they walked in a wasteland where God had not built any roads. The well in God’s people was about to dry out, because they chose themselves in stead of God.
He wanted them to repent and return to him. He wanted them to trust his strong hands. He wanted to form them as clay in his hands.
The Samaritan woman
In John 4, we meet the Samaritan woman, who was about to dry out. She had a jar and wanted to fill it with water. Maybe the jar was made of clay. She was like the empty jar she carried. Jesus saw right trough her. He knew that she lived in sin. She didn’t know that water she needed the most, was not the men she had or the waterof Jakob’s well. Jesus told her the truth. He told her that he could fulfill her and give her a well inside of her:
“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.b The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4,13-14)
The water Jesus gives is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes from faith in Jesus.
The woman knew Jesus told her the truth. He is the truth. She believed that Jesus is Christ, and he wanted to give her life and hope. Jesus is the life. She believed he could fill her empty jar, her empty heart. And she left her jar at Jakob’s well and went into the city and told the people that she had met Christ.
Fragile jars of clay
Human beings are fragile jars. The apostle Paul knew that. He knew that Jesus comes with new life, while the old man, the sin, still lives in us. Paul knew that we are just jars of clay, and the treasure, the power, that is inside of us, is not ours. It’s the Holy Spirit.
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” (2 Cor 4,7)
We have not deserved it, but Jesus is our good shepherd. He died in stead of us, and He want to fill our cups and anoint us with the Holy Spirit.
“you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” (Psalm 23,5)
In Jeremiah 18, in The old testament, God’s people were often in trouble. They forgot God and disobeyed him. God our heavenly father is holy and can’t be together with sin.
Also today, many people are children of disobedience, but they have a chance to repent and come close to God, because they have been given a door to God’s holiness. That door is Jesus. By his clean, holy, precious blood, he has opened a gate to life, to God.
It’s not because of what we have done or who we are. We have nothing to be proud of. It’s because of God’s great mercy and love for us, that he sacrificed his beloved son and saved us by grace.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the bodya and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.b 4Butc God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph 2,1-8)
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