I was reading in Romans and came upon a passage that said, “What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,”. Paul is speaking here of people, not pottery, but using an analogy of a potter who creates some vessels to be honored and some to be destroyed. It took me aback a bit: does God create some people with the intention of destroying them or using them in diabolical ways, such as Judas Iscariot was? Let’s take a closer look at this passage.
Romans 9:18-24
18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? Continue reading “Prepared for Destruction”
I once was a member of a church that had the Deacons rotate through offering an invocation at the opening of the worship service. There was one Deacon whose prayers I dreaded. They always went something like, “Oh, Lord, we are disgusting worms, undeserving of your presence, much less your grace. We should be crushed…” you get the idea. He counted this as showing humility.
Regrets do serve a purpose. When we regret having done something, we learn from it so we can move on and do better. It’s when we decide to pitch a tent in those regrets and live there that they become destructive.
In a world that is filled with an increasing amount of noise, it gets harder and harder to hear what is important.
Do you know that Jesus was not born on December 25th? Or in December at all? Americans tend to think of the birth of Christ as being in winter, envisioning Joseph trudging through snow with Mary on a donkey. But all accounts of the announcement of Jesus’ birth state that there were shepherds abiding in the fields with their flocks. Winter in Israel tends to be cold and rainy. Sometimes it snows. Shepherds would live in the fields with their flocks during the fair-weather months of late spring, summer and early fall, but in winter Jewish shepherds sought shelter for themselves and their flocks. They would not have been abiding in the fields during the time we call December.
