I Corinthians 12, II Corinthians 1:4, Hebrews 4:16

“Cracked Pots”

God’s gifts are not always wrapped in pretty paper and bows.  All of God’s gifts serve a purpose in the body of Christ.

It is much better to follow Jesus than any man.  You were saved by God’s grace for His pleasure.  God has a specific job for every Christian to do.

The church is not about it’s pastor, it’s leadership, or the building.  The church is about Jesus Christ that the excellency of its power might be about Him and not about us.

You can’t have complete confidence in anything or anyone but God.  Every person is flawed.  God is the only One who is perfect.  God uses “Cracked Pots.”  We are all imperfect people.  We are all “cracked” in different ways.  We all have some kind of problems in our lives.  We have insecurities, and strengths, and cultural differences, and histories.  We’ve got some cracks in who we are.

Don’t be blind to the benefits and blessings of the person God made you to be.  God chose us in spite of our shortcomings and faults.  God may have even chosen us BECAUSE of our shortcomings and faults so we can be better used to help others with similar problems. 

God helps things happen to you and me so we can help others going through the same things.  Don’t beat yourself up because of your failures.  Let the redeemed part of you attest to God’s goodness.  There is a self-worth that comes from God that helps us to be who we are called to be.  We have a value to God, and we need to realize that we are important.

God expects the best from cracked pots.  Don’t quit.  Don’t get discouraged.  You can be what God would have you to be even though you’re not perfect.  God specializes in holding cracked pots together.   

God delights in filling cracked pots.  Humanity has been flawed from the beginning.  Once a person is saved, they have the ability to sin, and they also have the ability to choose not to sin. 

After you get saved, you have to go against the Holy Spirit within you to sin.  As a child of God, if you continue sinning, you’ve got to work at it.  It’s not impossible to do wrong.  But it’s possible to do right.   God gets glory from using cracked pots.  He is glorified through our frailty. 

God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness.  The devil will get you to dwell on your failures, but you can bring them all to Jesus and lay them at His feet.  With your flaws, give it all to Him, and He can use you!

Give God the pieces of who you are and He can make you the person you were intended to be.

Matthew 1:1-6, Romans 4:5, Matthew 18:11

The Gospel According to Some Bad Girls

The inclusion of these ladies in this story illustrates God’s all-encompassing grace.

Is there a page in your life that you wish you could erase?

Why did the Author put Tamar’s name into Christ’s geneaology?  Her sin.  It is because of sin that we come to Christ, and it is because of sin that Christ came to us.  Christ died for sinners. 

Rahab was a prostitute who God allowed to be in the bloodline of Christ.  Rahab had faith that bore fruit.  She had lived a horrible human existence.  There was not much good about her, just as there is not much good about us.  Faith that removed the curse, protected her family, and brought her to her husband, put her on the list. 

Ruth faced the law.  Her righteousness was not her entrance.  You can be the best person in the world, but without Jesus Christ as your Saviour, you will go to hell.  It is our self-righteousness sometimes is what keeps us from coming to Christ.  You can take all of your goodness and pile it up, but it would not be good enough to get you to heaven.  A lot of people reject the Lord.  A lot of people neglect the Lord.  Everyone who rejects (thus neglects) Christ will go to hell.

Bathsheeba (though un-named) was mentioned to show the potential for failure.  David fell with her.  The connecting word for Bathsheeba to Christ is grace. 

If you don’t know Jesus as your personal Savior, trust Him today.  There is no better time to get saved than RIGHT NOW!      

Pray for your loved ones who do not know Jesus yet.  If you don’t know Jesus yet, someone is probably praying for you right now.

James 4:14-18

“For What is Your Life?”

Our earthly lives are brief at best.  Tomorrow is never guaranteed.  We only have a certain amount of time here on earth. 

You have one life.  Therefore, you have ONE CHANCE to live for Jesus.  You get one chance to conduct yourself right in the conflicts of life.

Realize of how little importance you are.  Jesus is the One who is important.  He is the one who matters.  You have a chance to serve and worship God right now.  You have one chance to be the kind of Christian the Bible says to be.  You have one opportunity to do it right.  Do it right! 

In this one life that we have, we get to attend church, read our Bibles, and share our faith because we WANT to.  In heaven we will be with the church constantly, with the Living Word, and there will be no more chances to share our faith.

Your life is a thin, little segment of time.  It is a vapor.  It is paper-thin.  You have a choice to life righteously.  Doing anything besides serving Him is a waste of time.  As the sands fall in the hourglass of your earthly existence, what is truly worth doing?   

You will place the package of the accomplishments of your life at the feet of Christ someday.  The only things that matter are spiritual.  Wrong motives behind good deeds are going to deplete our work for God.  How much of what we do for God is really FOR GOD and not for the approval and applause of men?

Live your whole life for Jesus Christ.  You can be filled with His power.  He can work through you.  Only what’s done with the right motive for Christ will last. 

You have one life.  You have one chance. 

Genesis 37, 39, 41 Philippians 3:13-14, James 5:9

JOSEPH’S THREE SUITS

Forgetting helps one to deal with the past.

The coat of many colors sparked jealousy in his brothers.  The coat got Joseph seized and sold into slavery.  No matter what befalls your path, in God’s will, He will always be there with you.

A relationship with a woman that is not your wife is inappropriate many times long before it becomes intimate.  You have no business taking your secretary out to dinner.  You have not business spending time privately with a woman that is not your wife.  Joseph’s actions here should have won him a medal, but instead landed him in prison.  His garment was taken by Potiphar’s wife

Joseph was given a coat of promotion.  He got position and power.    

A grudge is like a vile of acid that just drips away.  If you hold a grudge, it will soil your soul.  We can’t rightfully get revenge as Christians.  Revenge feels horrible.  Give it all to God, and forget about it, and go on.

God knows all about your past.  He can work it out if you learn to let go of some things.  You can have victory in your life.  Forgetting is an act of our will.  You can dwell on the negative, or you can let it go.  God’s divine forgetfulness (Ps. 103:2) is one of His greatest attributes.  He is not absent-minded.  God is all-knowing, but chooses to forget our confessed sin.

We ought to remember what God has done for us.  We should remember the scarred piece of nothingness that we once were before God’s grace. 

How to know when you’ve gotten over something: When you cannot remember with complete accuracy the details of what someone did to you; when you put it behind you.

Forgetting brings peace, and constant remembrance only breeds bitterness in our lives.

God can help us to forget.  You can let stuff bother you, or you can forget it, move on, and serve God.

Forgive and ye shall be forgiven.  God will help you forget when you forgive.  God’s forgiveness includes the forgetting of our pasts. 

Bitterness does nothing to affect the person you harbor bitterness against.  Bitterness only festers and tourments yourself.