Bisqueware - clay pieces that have been fired once.
Glazeware - clay pieces that have been glazed and fired a second time.
Big Idea: God loves us. He wants to be in relationship with us, His pottery.
I think of the greenware as being like us before we believe and receive God's love and rescue plan for our "greenware" state. Greenware is the kind of clay jar that is in a very brittle, easily destroyed state. It reminds me of the time in our life when we have our sin and pain and have nowhere to go with it. Maybe we work harder or longer, maybe we numb up or drug up. But, it is never enough to make us feel at peace with our internal fallenness, with ourselves and God.
We are fragile, although some of us think we are invincible in this greenware stage. We give away pieces of ourselves or have pieces broken off of us by bullies or thoughtless ones. Think of a movie you have watched, and a scene happens which brings tears to your eyes. It evokes something in your own life that is still painful, unresolved. Or, it touches that part of our fallenness, or someone else's wrongdoing who we are in relationship with, and it is exposed in the movie. Laid bare. The moment of intimacy at that moment exposes the real you. And you weep.
Do you turn up the music, watch more TV or work longer or run to an addiction to keep from dealing with your brokenness, internal alienation from our loving God? Are you running from yourself? Your tears? I was.
Bisqueware has been fired in an oven cranked up to about 1000 degrees or more. That reminds me of our giving up, asking Jesus to forgive me of my sins and accepting His substitutionary death for me. And receiving His righteousness. Bisqueware "clay jars" run to a love relationship with God. Jesus' "cure" for my sin allows me to be intimate with God, myself and others without hiding or numbing.
It is like handing over the reigns of my intimate life to Him. It is my rebirth, but it is also my death to self, death to thinking my good works making me OK with a holy, perfect God. I give up coping with, covering up my shame and hiddenness from God. I expose my shame and acknowledge my sin to His love and embrace His mercy and grace.
Being sealed and filled with the Holy Spirit reminds me of the glazeware stage of pottery. Turn up the kiln even hotter for this stage. Fired, glazed pots are usable for all sorts of service, decoration, beauty and enjoyment. For the follower of Jesus, this is when we walk in righteousness, filled with righteousness, and then we begin to manifest God's character in this life on planet earth.
However, we are always clay jars. We aren't God at all just because we have a love relationship with Him. Some leagalists might think they are God all of a sudden because they are in relationship with Him. Judging others, standing in a powering over position. Boasting comes in again. This is a new alienation, due to pride, distancing from God and others. Legalists' worlds get smaller and smaller.
So, today, Lord, help me. Help me to be transparent, humble and intimate with you and others and usuable for your service. Your glazeware.
Picture of art....clay leaf.
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