When I first came to the Lord I took a literal 40 days and did absolutely nothing but read my Bible. I was 22ish I think and I had just moved back in with my parents at the time, and they were so desperate and willing for the Lord to do a work in their broken daughters’ life that they supported my 40-day proposal without even blinking.
When my 40 days was up I was changed, my walls and ceilings were covered in scripture, and I was bursting at the seams to tell someone all the new things that God had told me.
To quell an urge I’d honestly never felt pre-salvation, I sat down at the computer with my Bible laid open on the desk and my finger-tips at the keyboard, and I spilled. Just got to typin.
When I was done I had some 15 separate essays on what I’d learned. I printed them off, hole-punched them, and bound the pages together with a ribbon. Made a whole stack of them.
“j.m.p. devotions” I called them. (I used to be Jess Marie Plummer.)
When I took a stack of my booklets to church that night, a whole crew of my sweet new church family members lined up and bought the copies from me, $3 a piece, until my arms were empty of booklets and my purse was stuffed with crumpled one dollar bills and quarters.
To date, it was the most fulfilling thing I’d ever done in my life.
God gave me a new desire. I was messy and janky and wildly ill-equipped, but He purposed that I would get out words about Him anyway, and that is what I did.
Fast forward to a month or so down the road. My “readership” had grown, but I got wind one evening after church that someone in a leadership-type position had complained that I was writing. “Who is she to write devotionals? Should we be letting her do this?”
It was a reference of course, to my past. My pre-Jesus; my very recent “Before Christ” days–which were one big huge gross dumpster fire and everyone knew it.
I cried. I just went home super embarrassed and cried. They’re right, I said. Who am I to talk about Him? When everyone knows where I’ve been and how far I have to go?
And a part of me never stopped crying over it. This very blog in fact sat in a secret corner of the internet for months before I shared it, because more than 10 years later I still struggle with believing the very same thing: They’re right. Who am I to talk about Him? When everyone knows where I’ve been and how far I have to go?
Do you feel this way, ever? Have you felt called to a work and waited instead till the moment passed because you just knew you weren’t worthy?
If you have, read this:
“For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord,
with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”
has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”
Thank God, it’s not myself that I’m called to proclaim. It’s Jesus as Lord.
It’s the act of a servant, passing along the knowledge we ourselves never could have found if God had not been so merciful as to open our eyes to it. And to ensure that a watching world would not mistake us for the glorious ones, God took life-changing knowledge and truth and light and stuffed it inside a bunch of finite sinful humans. There is no mistake now–Any good in us is obviously Him.
The John MacArthur Study Bible has this note on the topic:
“By using frail and expendable people, God makes it clear that salvation is the result of his power and not any power his messengers could generate. The great power of God overcomes and transcends the clay pot. The messenger’s weakness is not fatal to what he does; it is essential.“
So there. You are frail and expendable. Praise be.
This is not some dirty secret that the rest of the world will find out or point out once you start doing God’s work. Instead, it is the obvious. You are a clay jar, flawed, unremarkable aside from Christ, typically used for everyday, common, mundane nothings. But to put it as MacArthur did–this is not fatal to your ministry, it is essential.
It had to be this way. Lest we boast or convince a single soul that it is us with the power, us with the glory, us with the wisdom, the Lord rounds up utterly frail and expendable sinners-saved-by-grace and graciously pours out His treasures into us.
And when the world sees that you are in fact plain, or that you are sometimes prone to crack, or that you’ve got nicks or smudges or ugly parts they didn’t know about, it does not automatically disqualify you from the work you are called to, but instead points to God in His glory, just as it was always meant to.
I heard a pastor this week put it this way: “God has been using crooked sticks to make straight lines for a long time.”
And that’s us. Clay jars and crooked sticks.
I pray you’re relieved to hear it, and not offended. The Bible calling you an expendable, disposable, cheap, replaceable clay jar that is merely the vessel for the treasures of God ought to be the most merciful, freeing thing you’ve heard all year.
Oh yeah. He didn’t come to earth and find the perfect people and tell them all His secrets.
He found the broken ones, the sick ones, the thieves, the harlots, the lepers, and the lame.
He came for people like us. And He’s been entrusting “people like us” with His treasures for thousands of years.
I know, to be fair, God did say, “be holy for I am holy (1 Peter 1:16).”
And He does urge you to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called (Ephesians 4:1). A true Christian pursues holiness for the rest of their life. To say that we are all clay pots and the only good in us is Christ is not to say that we can disregard God and His commands and wave a hand over it as to say “all is grace, God expects this from me, it’s fine.” And it is especially not to say that we will continue to get opportunities to join Him in His work if we refuse to walk in His ways. He did give Saul’s kingdom to another. A whole generation of Israelites did die out before ever getting to the Promised Land.
We absolutely reap what we sow and God does not reward rebellion. Always life a life of humility, confession, and repentance.
Just don’t let Satan bound you up in the lie that because you’re a sinner, you can’t step into your calling. Don’t believe the lie that because you’re a clay pot, you can’t tell anyone about the treasures God gave you when He saved your soul.
If you’re a saved child of God, you’re filled to the brim with treasures. And I’m not talking about your personality, your skills, your sense of humor, or your talents.
I’m talking about the knowledge of God. The news of the gospel.
Just look around you today: This is something most of the world doesn’t have.
I recently came across this verse in 1 Corinthians and it keeps coming to mind as I write:
“This is how one should regard us,
as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.
Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.”
1 Corinthians 4:1-2
What God has revealed to you through grace and through His Word is now yours to steward. Go and steward faithfully. ✌️
Jess Davis 
Jess, I am glad you decided to write publicly. You write well and I think God will use that to make a difference in someone’s life. The are lot’s of reasons that Satan can use to discourage us from sharing our God-given gifts. I just started a blog a few months ago and while my story was different I too had feelings of “Why bother? Who would want to read anything I say?”. Don’t be afraid let this process of getting your thoughts out challenge you go grow. The growth in your self may be more than in those who read your words. I teach youth in my church and I often wonder if I benefit more than they do. Anyway thanks for sharing and keep writing.
LikeLike