Preacher’s Point: God not in the repair business

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As a child, once a year, we would visit my aunt. In a prominent place in her living room was a vase. The vase had roses painted on it. It also had two cracks running up the side. Every visit, she would warm me to be careful. My cousin broke it years ago, my aunt had to glue it back together, and she believed it would not survive another fall.

Over the last twenty years or so, I have heard Christians describing themselves as a broken pot that Christ fixed. When I hear this, the cracks in my aunt’s vase always come to mind.

Yes, my aunt fixed the pot, but the cracks were always visible. When the cracks are visible, it is still a broken vase. True, it is in better shape than being in a dozen small pieces on the floor, but as everyone could see, the breakage was apparent. It did not have the beauty and splendor the vase creator intended it to have.

It may function well, maybe even hold water, but the intended glory is no longer there.

Often the story of the potter and the clay is the example used to show God fixes us. The problem is the potter did not improve any pots; He created new ones. Jeremiah 18:4, “And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.”

Some may accuse me of being picky about a modern description of an age-old truth, but it gives the wrong picture.

My cousin, the infamous vase breaker, was twenty-five years my senior. The gluing of the vase took place decades before I came along. Yet, I could see its scars; Jesus took our spiritual scars on the cross. Isaiah 53:5, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

A Christian is not a broken vessel held together with spiritual glue and duct tape. We are new creatures in Christ. A new creation; 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

When salvation comes, God does not fix the old parts. He creates new ones. Ezekiel 36:26, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.”

Sin has wreaked havoc on this universe we live in, and one day Christ will replace it with “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). This future new creation is a picture of the new birth every Christian goes through at the point of salvation. It is a new birth, not a fixing of the old self. John 3:3, “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

This new creation is much more than a change in lifestyle or the frequency of our participation in religious ceremonies. It is a change in who we are – God has made us a new creature. Galatians 6:15, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.”

Only the potter, only God, can create a new pot. The vessel cannot do it on its own. This new creation of a person comes at salvation through the blood of Christ. Ephesians 2:15, “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;”

As a side note, notice that Ephesians verse above shows, this new creation in Christ, through His blood sacrifice on the cross, is the only way a person can have peace with God.

Christian, stop selling God short — you are not a broken vase, beautiful, serviceable, yet with cracks — you are a new creation in Jesus Christ.

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By Timothy Johnson

Preacher’s Point

Johnson is pastor of Countryside Baptist Church in Parke County Indiana. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.preacherjohnson.com. E-book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TUJTV2A If you email, inform me where you have seen Preacher’s Point. Viewpoints expressed in the article are the work of the author and not the newspaper.

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