SURRENDERED LIFE

“Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand…” (Jeremiah 18:6, ESV)

“For we are His creation—created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.” - (Ephesians 2:10, HCSB)

With this analogy of the clay in the potter’s hand, God illustrates His will for the relationship between Himself as creator and the believer as His unique creation. It is the will of God that the believer lives a “surrendered life” – a life that yields to God’s revealed plans and purpose. We are God’s creation, intentionally “created in Christ for good works”.

To fully understand what it means to be God’s creation and reach our full potential “in Christ”, we have to live a totally surrendered life.  Hudson Taylor, an English missionary to China and founder of China Inland Mission (now OMF International) lived this truth; and was quoted as saying: “I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked God if I might help Him. I ended up asking Him to do His work through me”. Taylor discovered that it was not about what he wanted to do but all about what God chose to do through him. God will use anyone who willingly and totally yields to Him.

God will mould you, equip you and work through you if you become available to Him by living a surrendered life. And yours will truly epitomize a surrendered life when you become the clay in the potter’s hand. The potter works and reworks the clay into the shape he determines and for the purpose which he has prepared ahead of time, yet the clay does not resist or resent being used for one purpose and not another.

So learn to live the kind of life that permits God to freely work through you. Let your attitude be the same as that of Christ Jesus our Lord who prayed, saying, “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). It is a blessed life!

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