Today, I ponder recycling. God has a recycling program, but He needs us to get involved. Don’t give up!
1) DON’T GIVE UP ON PEOPLE!
Is recycling in the Bible? Yes! Jeremiah 18, God sends the Preacher to the Potter’s house to make some observations that would apply to the spirit realm. Vs. 2) God says Arise, get up, apply some effort and go to the potter’s house for God has a word to launch forth. In verse 4, the Preacher watched as the clay was spinning on the potter’s wheel and something happened, something bad happened, the clay was marred. What the master had planned for the clay was spoiled, and the clay could not reach the perfection the Master had planned. This vessel could not be whole? The is a plan.
Did the Master throw the marred clay away? Was hope gone because things went different from the plan? Read what the Master did ---
he took the marred clay and made a choice, I WILL MAKE IT AGAIN ---so HE MADE IT AGAIN ---another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter, HE MADE IT.
The story goes on, this is not a story of a spinning potter’s wheel and clay, this is a story of people. There is a Divine process to REGAIN GOD’S PEOPLE and sinners to the Cross. God does not make junk! God will cause us to pass through a process to alter, adapt, recover and bring back His people.
Don’t give up on yourself. Don’t give up on your family! Don’t give up on people. Try again, and again! If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. It is always too soon to give up on people.
2. PUT FORTH A GREATER EFFORT!
When I was in the first grade in Cincinnati, Ohio, we learned to draw and stay in the lines. My family could only afford the box of eight crayons. My eight crayons were big and fat and hard to keep in the lines. The girl that sat right in front of me had a big box of 64 Crayola Crayons. She had 8 times the selection I had for colors. Hers was skinny and if they dulled she could sharpen them.
As we draw there was a weekly prize for the best, she always beat me! I am a competitor and this hurt my feelings week in and week out, I LOST! I at first would asked her to borrow her flesh color for people, she would not loan her crayons to anyone because they might get dull. I knew there was a sharpener right in her box. I learned to rotate mine as I drew and keep the point sharp. At first all my people were embarrassed, red faced, I had no choice?
I thought, This is not fair, she can beat me, I don’t have a chance. One day, I decided I was going to get good enough that I would win.
I started learning how to get different shades out of one color. I practice hard to keep my coloring in the lines. I got better and better. I learned how to softly mix two colors and make a different color. I started winning some of the weekly contests, not all of them, she could beat me on some, but I started making a choice: quit crying that you only have 8 fat Crayons and she has 64.
I learned life is not fair, but do the best with what you have and God will help you. Life not being fair made me a better artist. I just had to apply myself better and work harder. I have told this story and people have bought me several boxes of 64 Crayola Crayons. Then I allow this to hurt my feelings, WHY GOD COULDN’T I HAVE HAD THESE WHEN I WAS YOUNGER? Then it came to me, you are to give these to some kid that doesn’t even have the 8, to level the playing field.
With my nose in the air, I tell you I have a box of 96 on my desk. Are you impressed? When my sons were in school, they had 64. When Josh went away to college each year, I would want to buy him a box of 64 crayons? He would say, Dad get real. I was!
3. OFTEN THE MANUFACTURE WILL HAVE A RECALL.
Cars are not the only things manufactors recall, God recalls people to make changes in their marriages, in their giving, in their attitudes.
How sad the story in Luke 7:39, the Pharisees had invited Jesus home with them. A dirty, sinful lady came into the house, she had heard about Jesus and had to meet the Man. The Pharisees in their holy religious form said, IF Jesus was real he would know WHO and WHAT this woman was? JESUS KNEW! How easy is it for us to base what we see and think on others past performances, to see their outside. The religious crowd knew what this woman was!
Jesus was a recycler: Jesus saw beyond what she was to what she could be. Jesus saw the motive, the intention. Jesus saw the precious gold hidden in her heart. There was great potential in this woman. She will become a great worker for Jesus.
4. THE NO EFFORT, FAULT FINDERS ARE IN THE CROWD.
Luke 7:44-46, Jesus points out that the fault finders, head shrinkers, critics had not made an effort, yet here they want to put forth the death gargle of criticism. Jesus says, you gave me no water (water is a type in the Bible, a type of essentials) to wash my feet. See, to have water would have had to been planned and send someone to the well. You never gave me a kiss, you never welcomed and showed love and affection to the very Son of God! You never anointed (type of spiritual devotion) my head. Yet you want to fault find this one that did? Your no effort and excuses breed a judgmental spirit. GROW UP!
I want to tell you an empty glass makes more noise than a full one!
Jesus was a friend of sinners, Jesus recycles people.
5. IT IS EASIER TO LOVE PIGS THAN A MAN IN NEED.
Mark 5 records a good-bad story. There was a man we call Legion, that could not be bound, yet he was BOUND in the worse way. He ran through the tombs crying and cutting himself. This man was bound without chains.
Here is a hidden lesson, these Jews were in a backslidden condition. They were raising PIGS on the farms. This is an act of rebellion against the teaching at that time. All the world can see, is the profit from the pigs, this is not the right perspective. Profit should never go before the love of sinners. Again this by today’s standard would be like making money from raising marihuana or producing Cocaine.
There is another point hidden here, 15, they came and saw the man sitting next to Jesus learning, clothed and in his right mind, and the people were afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid of his testimony rocking their community? Afraid that people would see Jesus can turn messes into messages?
6. LOCAL RECYCLING WORKS BEST!
In verse 18, the man begged Jesus, let me go with you! Jesus would not allow this, his mess turned into a message needed to return home. Many want to go to a foreign field, but they couldn’t care less about the recycling of their neighbor? Their family?
The souls of rich people and poor people are made in the same mold. The souls of saints and criminals are made in the same mold. We are a produce of our chocies.
7. RECYCLING DEPENDS ON YOU!
You don’t have to be a slick willy, pretty, smart, are multitalented --- You cannot change the past. You cannot not change others, unless you first submit yourself to change. Many are praying God change my spouse and my world, but they refuse to admit for a healing to come, we must submit on the altar! To recycle startes with you!
8. WE MUST MAKE WISE CHOICES AND SUBMIT TO THE RECYCLING OF THE POTTER’S WHEEL.
There is something to do with choices. The same reason we bicker in the family, is the same reason there are wars between nations.
Chiefly the mold of a man’s fortune is in his own hands. If you have a guitar with only one string, you can cry, or learn to make music on one string? You can find excuses and not offer your talent if you want too. See the battle is in the attitudes we develop. Life is 10% what happens to us, and 90% of how we choose to react to what happens.
GOD RELEASE YOUR RECYCLING POWER HERE. START IT FIRST IN ME, THEN SENT ME TO MY AREA WITH A COMMITMENT TO START A RECYCLING PROGRAM, THAT HURTING PEOPLE WILL SIT AT JESUS’ FEET! Some one out there is waiting for you!
His servant, Wade Martin Hughes, Sr, Kyfingers@aol.com
