“Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? ²² What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the Vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, ²³ and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the Vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, ²⁴ even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?”

Romans 9:21-24

 

There are a number of things that I want to extract from the passage above. The first thing is that the potter has the power over the clay to make it. Irrespective of the disposition of the clay, whether it is excited or not excited, the potter has the power to make it. The second thing you would notice is that God’s Vessels are prepared. God cannot and does not use a vessel that He has not prepared. Thirdly, any vessel that God makes are always unto glory and not shame. If God has commissioned you into His works or assignment, if you go through the process of His making, you can only bring glory to His name and not shame.

 

 

Based on these forgoing, I want to share with us what has been titled: How God Makes His Chosen Vessels. The place of men and women cannot be undermined in the workings of God on earth. By God’s special providence, and when it has to do with the affairs of the earth, man cannot be taken out of the equation. In every place, God looks for that man and woman who would execute His counsel. Isaiah 46:10-11 shows us this assertion to be true. It says:

 

Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
And I will do all My pleasure,’
¹¹ Calling a bird of prey from the east,
The man who executes My counsel, from a far country.
Indeed I have spoken it;
I will also bring it to pass.
I have purposed it;
I will also do it.

 

At every point in time, God looks for His chosen Vessels and make them to be fit for the assignment before them. Go through all the Scriptures, there is never a man or a woman that God used that He didn’t prepare for the assignment. When God choose the unqualified, He makes sure that He qualifies them before releasing them. God does not look for men that has “arrived” as we sometimes say in our parlance, He would rather look for those He would make arrive. Moses felt he had arrived, and so, he wanted to commence the work without God’s approval. He felt he grew up in Egypt, he knows his way in and out of it and therefore, he could kickstart the work.

 

Stephen’s account gave us a glimpse into Moses’ error. Acts 7:20-29 and I want us to read that account.

 

“At this time Moses was born, and was well pleasing to God; and he was brought up in his father’s house for three months. ²¹ But when he was set out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son. ²² And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds. ²³ “Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. ²⁴ And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian. ²⁵ For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. ²⁶ And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting, and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren; why do you wrong one another?’ ²⁷ But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? ²⁸ Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?’ ²⁹ Then, at this saying, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he had two sons.”

 

After this account, Moses needed to disappear for another forty years so that God could make him and officially commission him into the work. So that is to buttress the fact that God looks for people he can make and conform by Himself to the work. In 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 apostle Paul says: “For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. ²⁷ But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; ²⁸ and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, ²⁹ that no flesh should glory in His presence.”

 

So, if you examined it in the Bible, from Moses, to all the people that God used specially in the Old Testament, to the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, down to Paul and the rest, every one God uses He qualifies them and prepares them for the work. There are about four stages that God’s chosen Vessels go through, and I want to show us in a bit.

 

Stage One: THE CALLING STAGE

“Moreover, whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

Romans 8:30

 

The first thing that God does is that He calls a man or a woman. Now, God can call you to start a new work or calls you to support another man’s vision. Because there is this culture of not wanting to serve others that is pervading Christendom today. There are those who hold that belief that God only calls to go pioneer a new work and not to serve another God-given vision under another man. Time would not permit us to really go deeper on this aspect, I would have shown us Scriptural basis that shows that God can call you to serve in God’s vision given to another man. Either ways, God still calls you.

 

Someone may think or ask: “why is it that God still calls when He knew aforetime that He will use me? Why didn’t He just go ahead and impose the work on me?”  Now, irrespective of the fact God knows everything, because the Bible says in Acts 15:18 that “known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world”, and that God knows the end of something even from the beginning; God still calls you when the times come. There are two reasons why God will call you when the time is at hand to fulfill His assignment. Number one, He wants your will to be submitted to His own will, because He made you with a freewill, and number two, He wants to see your yieldedness to the call.

 

For example, in Genesis 12:1-5, God called Abraham. The Bible says:

 

Now the Lord had said to Abram:

“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
² I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
³ I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

⁴ So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

 

Now, notice that the Lord did not say anything to Abraham in the first place about how everything He had said to him would come into fruition. What does that mean? In the calling stage, you don’t get to know the how because what God is looking for at this stage is whether you would respond to the call. Also, when the apostle Paul encountered Christ on his way to Damascus, Jesus did not immediately start telling him what he would be doing right there and then. The Bible says:

 

“And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” ⁶ So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

Acts 9:5-6

 

It was after this encounter that he yielded and Christ now began to reveal to him the things that he would suffer for the gospel. So, the starting point before God makes you ready for the assignment is that He calls you. Don’t go ahead to begin a work for God if He has not commissioned or called you to start it. If you simply do that, what you are doing is opening yourself to frustration. Because when God calls you by Himself, He gives you all the necessary backing to succeed while at it. So, instead of frustration, it would be progress.

 

Stage Two: THE CONSECRATION STAGE

“But in a great house there are not only Vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. ²¹ Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.”

2 Timothy 2:20-21

 

Consecration has to do with devoting oneself to the worship or the service of God. It also means a total separation from the norm. God’s chosen Vessels are consecrated Vessels. God never uses anyone that is not consecrated unto Him first. The first point of consecration is our inner lives – who we are on the inside. In Matthew 23:25-26 Jesus said: “woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisees, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean.”

 

The second point of consecration is our body. Romans 12:1-2 tells us: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. (If we don’t concentrate our life to God, there cannot be a reasonable service) ² And do not be conformed to this world, (part of our consecration is non conformity with this world) but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (part of our consecration to God also involves continual renewal of the mind), that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Romans 12:1-2

 

So, from that passage, our consecration is something that should happen on a daily basis. We must constantly and regularly set ourselves apart for God because the nature of the work and assignment requires it. So, no matter how busy our days may be, there should be times of the day that we have set apart for God. Such times should be consecrated to God and nothing else.

 

Stage Three: THE PREPARATION STAGE

“And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him. ¹⁴ Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach.”

Mark 3:13-14

 

God never sends His Vessels out until He has prepared them first for the work. Moses wanted to start the assignment without being prepared by God for it. But this he learnt the hard way because, he needed to flee for another forty years. The implication of that was that the children of Israel needed to wait additional thirty years in bondage and those years were the most tumultuous years for them because the grace of God didn’t cover it. By God’s design, they were supposed to be there for four hundred years because that was what the grace of God covered. But because a man would start the work without being commissioned, their exit was delayed.

 

The disciples walked with Jesus for three and half years. In those years, He poured Himself into them without measure. And there are a number of ways through which God prepares us. It is important we examine this for a rounded understanding of God’s preparatory stage.

 

Sometimes God takes us through situation and circumstances or certain experiences in order to prepare us for the assignment ahead. For example, the disciples couldn’t heal an epileptic boy because they lacked faith. That incident needed to happen so that Christ could school them on the need for faith for the work ahead of them. Jesus said to them:

 

“Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.” ¹⁸ And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. ¹⁹ Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” ²⁰ So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. ²¹ However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.””

Matthew 17:17-21

 

So, whatever you are going through or experiencing right now could be a pointer to God’s preparation for His assignment for you.

 

Stage Four: THE DEPLOYMENT STAGE

“The Jesus called together the twelve [apostles] and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. And He sent them out to announce and preach the kingdom of Hod and to bring healing.”

Luke 9:1-2(AMP)

 

After the call, and the consecration and the preparation, then comes the deployment. God does not deploy until these three earlier stages have been fulfilled. Those who try to skip any of these stages are doing so at their own peril. In Jeremiah 23:21-22, God said “I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in My counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.” It is of utmost importance that we are deployed before we go. As disciples and disciplers, we move at the command of God!

 

Amen!

Thanks for the gift of your time, I am Obayomi Abiola Benjamin!

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