"In the Potters Hands"

"I do not believe that any suffering is ultimately absurd or pointless, although it is often difficult to go on convincing oneself of this. At first, we react with incredulity, anger and despair. Yet the value of suffering does not lie in the pain of it,...but in what the sufferer makes of it....It is in sorrow that we discover the things which really matter, in sorrow that we discover ourselves."
(Mary Craig)






How I love and prefer comfort! But, this is not the way of the cross. The way to glory is the way of suffering. The way to being conformed to the image of Christ is the way of pressure.

The love of the Father for His children is just as vividly displayed in His dark providences as it is in the bright light of His comforts.

He is dealing with us as with children! What an unspeakable blessing to consider in the midst of the victories and the struggles of our pilgrimage.

How rich we are to be in the potters hands and to be pruned by the master husbandman!

God is working and bringing to pass in His perfect way and in His perfect time a glorious work of new creation.

So, to all of my brothers and sisters, we have these great words of consolation from the scriptures, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." (Rom.8:18)

Reconcilliation......Past Tense!

"The work of reconcilliation, in the sense of the New Testament, is a work which is finished, and which we must conceive to be finished, before the gospel is preached....Reconcilliation...is not something which is being done; it is something which is done. No doubt there is a work of Christ which is in process, but it has as its basis a finished work of Christ. It is in virtue of something already consummated on his cross that Christ is able to make the appeal to us which he does, and to win the response in which we receive the reconcilliation."
(James Denney)

"God was in Christ reconcilling," actually reconcilling, finishing the work. It was not a tentative, preliminary affair....Reconcilliation was finished in Christ's death. Paul did not preach a gradual reconcilliation. He preached what the old divines used to call the finished work....He preached something done once for all-a reconcilliation which is the base of every soul's reconcilement, not an invitation only."
(P.T. Forsyth)

How glorious to consider that we have been reconcilled to God! His just wrath toward sinners has been fully satisfied in Christ! Peace has been declared and we are told to lay hold of this glorious peace and Christ-wrought, completed, reconcilliation by faith. Truly, it is finished, the battle is over! Let us rejoice in our great salvation and reconcilliation.

The Purpose of Affliction

Let me just open this post by acknowledging that I am, by nature, a person that is very prone to nervousness and "taking things to heart". This has caused me much angst over the years and has recently manifested itself in terrible anxiety attacks and, because of their severity, an overall since of dispair. But! thanks be to God, that He purposes even these times of severe turmoil for our growth in grace! In this vein I wanted to share a portion from Milton Vincent's "A Gospel Primer", in which he deals with God's ongoing work of conforming us to the gospel.


"Perspective in Trials"

"More than anything else I could ever do, the gospel enables me to embrace my tribulations and thereby position myself to gain full benefit from them. For the gospel is the one great permanent circumstance in which I live and move; and every hardship in my life is allowed by God only because it serves His gospel purposes in me. When I view my circumstances in this light, I realize that the gospel is not just one piece of good news that fits into my life somewhere among all the bad. I realize instead that the gospel makes genuinely good news out of every other aspect of my life, including my severest trials. The good news about my trials is that God is forcing them to bow to His gospel purposes and do good unto me by improving my character and making me more conformed to the image of Christ.
Preaching the gospel to myself each day provides a lens through which I can view my trials in this way and see the true cause for rejoicing that exists in them. I can then embrace trials as friends and allow them to do God's good work in me."