I think
that we all have this innate drive within.
We all desire to reach goals, see how far we can go, and at the bottom
line discover who we are ultimately.
In that
drive to achieve it is easy to see how different our pursuits may be. Not everyone desires to be a world class
weight lifter, or a news anchor, or a professional musician, or a poet, or a business
owner, or an actress, or a technician, or a surgeon. The list can go on and on. The point I am making is that we are all
unique in what we pursue to define us or give voice to who we are in life.
But, the
fact is there are some things that Scripture tells us that we are in God’s
sight, especially when we are in Christ.
It is important to see what these things are and to take stock if we are
living them out at the heart of our pursuits and desires, especially in our spiritual formation.
In this
next series, I want to answer this question with our teens: God, How Am I Made?
Now, all
of our students would like to know in specific detail how and what they were
created to be and do; what school should I go to, what books I should read, what state should I live in, what will I become? etc.
However, I am going to go further than that and look at some
of the essential spiritual realities in the Scriptures concerning how God has
"made us."
Number
One (Week One): God, How Am I Made?
You are Clay.
“But
now, O Lord, You are my Father. We
are the clay, and You are our potter.
All of us are the
work of Your hands.” Isaiah 64:8
We
are literally made of clay. All of us
are made of this material. Human bodies
share the same essential elements and compounds that are found in the dirt
outside.
However,
in week one, we will explore the deeper reality pictured here in the
Scriptures. I am going to be reaching for the spiritual point in these Biblical
metaphors and images.
Spiritually, God says we are to know and understand that we are like clay in His hands.
The point
here is that God wills to shape us. God
desires to shape our very lives.
But are
we pliable and willing to be shaped by God?
How
should we respond to this image given to us in Scripture?
Truly, every teen and every person alive were made to be shaped by God.
I will be
sharing two things about clay that teenagers can apply to their own spiritual
development in the first message.
(Week
Two: You are Sheep. Week Three: You are Salt.)
-mjw
-mjw