Refined in Truth
Hey friends in this podcast we talk about biblical truths and how we can apply them to our everyday lives. We would like to invite you to join us so you can see what God has for you today! The episodes consist of bible studies and open conversations with my wife and I as well as other guests we bring on the show. Join us so you can refine your spirit today with the word of God!
Refined in Truth
Clay in the Master's Hands
The biblical metaphor of the Potter and clay from Jeremiah 18 provides a powerful illustration of God's work in our lives, showing how He reshapes us when we become distorted from His original design.
• God as Potter and humanity as clay symbolizes divine guidance and our need to yield to His shaping
• The marred clay represents how we distort ourselves through choices contrary to God's design
• Spiritual transformation is a gradual process requiring patience and willingness to be molded
• Life's trials are like the kiln's fire (1,500°F), strengthening us through difficulty
• We naturally resist changing our ways, taking the easier path even when we know it's wrong
• Personal testimony shows how God gradually refines our character and behaviors over time
• Even when we're stubborn like ancient Israel, God continually offers the opportunity for redemption
• We have a daily choice between following God's design or our own flawed plans
If you haven't accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, we invite you to open your heart to His guidance and direction. Find a church community that will help edify your spirit and grow your knowledge of who God is.
All right, welcome back, friends, to another episode of the Refined in Truth podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Today I'm here with my beautiful wife, stephanie, and co-host. We're going to get into a couple of verses that God put in our heart today. We're going to read the verses, but we're just going to. We want to go deeper into these verses. We want to do more like a deep dive and at the same time, just bring like application, in a simple sense, to our lives and you know how we can also reflect on them and how we can also apply it to our personal lives. So I'm going to have my wife read it. It's going to be Jeremiah 18, verse 1 through 10. So you can go ahead when you're ready.
Speaker 2:Amen, in the name of the father, son, the holy spirit. Uh, at the potter's house. This is the word that came to jeremiah from the lord. Go down to the potter's house and there I will give you my message. So I went down to the potter's house and I saw him working at the well, at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands. So the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
Speaker 2:Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said Can I not do with you? Israel, as this potter does, declares the Lord. Israel, as the this Potter does, declares the Lord like clay in the hands of the Potter. So are you in my hand, israel? If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation, I warned, repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if, at any other time I announced that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it. Amen.
Speaker 1:Amen, awesome, awesome. Do you want to just pray before we start?
Speaker 2:Sure, Heavenly Father, we come before you, Father God, we're here during this podcast to read your word, to take in, Father God, what you have for us on this very day, Lord, that we may be able to reflect on it, that we may be able to share the thoughts that you have placed in our hearts, Father God, the thoughts that come from you, Father, that we may be able to share this with our friends here and they may be able to find a way to apply it on their daily lives as well. We thank you able to find a way to apply it on their daily lives as well.
Speaker 1:We thank you and we ask you to anoint our lips in Jesus mighty name amen, amen, awesome, awesome. So, with these verses, guys, you know we're just trying to be as genuine as possible with everything you know. We're not experts here. We don't know everything that is there, so the Bible. We don't know everything that is there, so the bible. We don't know everything that there is in regards to pottery, you know, like we did some research here and there and learn about it.
Speaker 1:But the same thing is gonna apply to like everything that we do on this podcast. Right, like we want you guys to also like dive deep into the Word to the Bible yourselves and read these verses yourselves and possibly get you know a revelation from God. And these are things that God has put in our heart to bring to you and to talk about. But you know we're going to bring our experiences and the things we've been through and try to be as genuine as possible with everything that we do here. Uh, so you can uh get a better understanding and see it from like you know how God put it in our heart, or the revelation that God gave us towards it.
Speaker 1:Um, you know this is a very like strong. These verses are very strong in the sense of like uh, are very strong in the sense of, like you know, jeremiah, you know, had to condemn Israel for, basically, you know, going against what God had told him to do or the way that he had, you know, directed them to go, and you know, it didn't. It doesn't really end well for Israel and and a lot of times when people read these, you know, they could feel like they're getting condemned towards, uh, what they're doing, which, you know, that's not what we're going to talk about today. Really, it's more about um, that a whole analogy of the powder and the clay, right, you know, it's a very beautiful analogy, um, what do you think?
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm speaking of the potter and clay. Um, basically, it's a symbolism, a representation of god being the potter and us being the clay, and it can help us visualize. Like like I said in the last podcast, it gives a good imagery of us and our relationship with God and how, you know, leaning on him as a potter, as a person who has the skill, as a person and higher authority that can do all things we can be molded into who he created us to be.
Speaker 1:Um, as long as you know, we're understanding of of this, you know it has that imagery of god being the powder and us being the, the clay, and how god, you know, used that to show jeremiah right um verse, let's see. In verse four it says you know, let me just start from verse three, because this I had this really kind of impacted me a little bit, or just thinking about it. So I went down to the potter's house and I saw him working on the wheel but the pot he was shaping from clay was marred in his hands. So I I was curious, I'm like, what does that mean? Right, because you know I'm gonna run you guys through my thoughts when I'm like, what does marred mean? I've never really like heard that word like that. I mean I can kind of use context clues and say, like marred, that might be like a damaged pot or something the pot was he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands. So when I looked it up more and they were talking about how let me see if I could read it for you guys the book of where the pottery's clay is marred, yeah, oh, okay, so one second here.
Speaker 1:So it was talking about how the pot is negatively impacted in some way by its own actions or the actions of the potter, right, which, in the case of the potter being god, he's not gonna. Which, in the case of the potter being God, he's not going to impact us in a bad way, he's going to try to impact us in a good way. But it was referring to more as, like, israel had decided to bend themselves out of the shape that God had created for them or the mold that God wanted for them. So, basically, when a potter is putting together a vase or a cup or any sort of pottery, once he starts so I guess it's called sewing in or shaping it he can put too much pressure or not enough pressure and it basically distorts the shape that he was going for. So that's what they meant by when they were saying like marred which. A lot of times you have a shape in mind you want, which is a cup, a bowl, whatever, but if you don't know what you're doing, you put too much pressure, you apply it in the wrong spot, you end up marring the clay and a lot of times, you know, we end up doing that, marring to ourselves.
Speaker 1:Really, through our actions, through the things that you know we choose to run away from that God has for us, or the things that God, you know, is trying to direct us, towards us, or the things that God, you know is trying to direct us towards, and we jump out of that mold that God has made for us, right, but the potter doesn't really like just give up on the clay. There, you know, the potter basically can start over, you know. So the clay as being us. The analogy, right, so we're the clay and god is the potter. So when he starts to mold us, you know, sometimes he has to to refine us, he has to pull out impurities or things that are happening in our lives that we don't realize is bad for us, but we still continue to do. So that clay is going to have to get molded one way or another.
Speaker 1:And that's what you know that analogy was for, like Israel, and at the same time I'm applying to applying it to our everyday life, to like what we go through, right, you know, when, before I came to Christianity, right, like I didn't, really I wasn't a bad person. I mean you can relate to this too, like, oh, you know me before I was a Christian, but I wasn't a bad person. But it doesn't mean that I didn't have bad habits, it didn't mean that I didn't do things that show. You know that I regret now doing or thinking about to some extent. Those are some things that you know that when we are the clay God has to mold out of us, he has to mold us into the shape of what he has in store for us, or who he wants us to be, you understand. So, as the, the vase or the cup is being molded, as we are being molded to become the christians that god wants us to be or the person that God wants us to be, it's a process, right, it's a process. It's not like instantaneously.
Speaker 1:Pottery requires, in real life, pottery requires a lot of skill. The average person, you know, is not a potter and if they are, you know it takes them, it's taking them time to become a potter. It requires skill and time for the pottery to be done, right, you know. If not, it's just considered clay, it's not considered pottery, it's considered clay until it gets shaped into some sort of pottery. We need to be refined and molded as clay to become pottery, and that's basically the biggest thing there that you know that God is trying to. You know, reveal to me and reveal to us as we're going through this, and even you know, just looking back in our life and the things that we're currently going through right now.
Speaker 2:Do you have anything you want to say? Yeah, I mean um. It's basically like going back to the verses, where it talks about the marred um clay. It's basically the potter taking out those imperfections that the clay already has and in those imperfections that the potter sees, like the verses say, they would have to uproot and tear apart, take down, you know, in order for that, that end product, to become what it needs to become yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1:it's not only I guess too, because just because you become a Christian doesn't mean that everything is going to become easier, like your whole life is going to become perfect, right, there's always that.
Speaker 2:You know there's always going to be some form of a process that you go through, you know, um, and in that, in those process, those different process that you have in your life, like that's where God, you know, kind of reveals what he needs to, and it's up to us to take that and and, like we, we will never be perfection, right, we're always going to need to rely on the source, the potter that that has created us, right, and you know, through those, through that, all of that, like, we're able to become better in life and, you know, seek him and and rely on him more. But you know it's a, it's a never-ending kind of like a never, never-ending cycle.
Speaker 1:Like you would still need to depend on that potter, you would still need to depend on the source yeah, I mean I just think back, like from my personal life, right, and I'm just being transparent with everyone right, like and through all of this that we're doing on the podcast. Like you know, when I was younger, like what you were, I mean there was things like what would I? I would drink. I would go out with my friends and drink and party. I didn't ever really do drugs because it was never really like my thing, I was never interested in it.
Speaker 1:Um, I did have like bad relationships where I didn't really understand fully like the meaning of love and like um like being patient and caring for your spouse, like I didn't fully understand those things but at the same time, like a lot of male, um males do in this day and age, like I, I struggled with pornography and that was another thing that in my youth, right like impacted me a lot. Because right like impacted me a lot because it's it's hard to kind of like live in in this society without this you know, hyper sexualization world that we live in and everything is, you know, sexualized and tv and stores and clothing and and everything everywhere. And and basically, like, if I look back at everything that God has brought me personally out of right. It wasn't like from one day to the next I, you know, stopped doing all of those things right. It took like years. And even before you and I got together, right, um, it had been seven years before I was like in a relationship with someone.
Speaker 1:And you know, I know like you for you is a little bit different too but like, I personally chose and I decided like I don't want to be in a relationship with someone because I know I'm not ready to commit to that yet and I'm not ready to fully like devote myself to someone, to commit to that yet, and I'm not ready to fully like devote myself to someone. And I know that I'm not ready mentally and physically and everything. Because I knew what had to, I had to be done, but at the same time, like something in me was not letting me. And um, and I look back right and I could say, right, when this all started in my life was when I decided to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, right through my friend's church Ralph, my friend's church and he had already been talking to me about God.
Speaker 1:But God had, you know, had different encounters with me personally and I can say that once I accepted Christ. That didn't mean that necessarily like I dropped everything and I was living like a double life or whatever the case, but little by little he was refining me, right. He was pulling out the impurities in the clay he was pulling out. He was molding me, molding the clay, pulling out. He was molding me, molding the clay. And I'm not trying to say that I'm perfect now, because I'm not, but, um, I've come a long way from where God originally, like, found me or brought me out of. You get what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think, um, a lot of times we don't really understand that. You know, it's always gonna be, um, there's always gonna be struggles in life and things that are gonna come and attack us, right? And the thing is that when you have christ, or when you, you know, accept Christ as your Lord and Savior and you follow the life of God and try to be more like Him every day, he brings peace. And it makes things easier than if you don't, because everybody kind of goes about their life when they don't follow Christ, thinking that there's another problem around the corner. And it might be true, there's another problem around the corner, but God is going to help you through it and it makes it easier, it lifts that burden off your shoulders, because I mean, even looking at the whole analogy of the clay, right, so the potter is shaping the clay, he's molding it to the vase or the cup.
Speaker 1:Let's just say the clay. Right, so the potter is shaping the clay, he's molding it to the vase or the cup. Let's just say a cup. Right? Once it's done, you know, he has to let it dry for a little bit and then, in order for it to become pottery, it needs to get put into the fire right, and it's not necessarily like I was just reading, it's not like 500 degrees, it has to be 1,500 degrees to 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit, and that's not like a regular oven, right, it needs to be they call it, I guess, a kiln In order for that to become strengthened. So in order for that pottery to become durable and strengthened, it needs to be put through the fire.
Speaker 2:Now, if you see that and you see yourself being in that fire, how do we get strengthened by that being in that fire? How do we get strengthened by that Like, during that process, like our desire should be to just praise and worship the one who's refining us right, in order to know, like at the end of this purification, like you're going to be strengthened.
Speaker 1:It's, it's just a matter of you withstanding that heat, kind of, and well, yeah, I mean if we can relate to the fire being like the trials of life, right, so if we can change the fire or say like okay, like the clay and the pottery is going to become strengthened and refined right once it gets put in the fire, but like, as we, you know, do the analogy like us getting put into a fire, it'd be more us going through, you know, uh, cancer, uh death in the family, uh, you know drug, uh addiction. You know a lot of these uh trials that people go through in life, the things that people go through. That, um, is not necessarily like an everyday occurrence, but those are all trials that we get put through, and and it's not necessarily that god is putting us through those trials, but um, it's, you know, habits and things that we've carried on from generation, generation or from our youth yeah, and again, it's not necessarily to say it's going to be a trial, but also just the purification aspects of it.
Speaker 2:Like you can be in that fire, right, and you know things can be silent to an extent, like you may not even be going through something, but you still are like pushing and fighting for something, right. But God still needs to work internally. And in order to do so, like that purification process still needs to work internally and in order to do so, like that purification process still needs to happen, like you can't just you can't just walk through life and you know the snap of a finger, expect something to just change. Like again, if you're in expectation for something different during that purification process, like again, like you, I just imagine it, I guess, maybe just thinking like why not worship? Why not?
Speaker 2:why, not praise? Why not, you know?
Speaker 1:look to the god that is doing this purification process and providing for you even still yeah, I mean, some people might look at the purification process as a bad thing, right, but it's not always a bad thing, because, even like the clay, right from clay to pottery, it changes, like the molecular structure uh, changes the molecular structure of it, it removes the water of it and all this stuff, right? Um, we can't expect things to have different results if we keep having this, if we keep taking the same actions right, the definition of insanity or whatever people say, like you know, expecting different results with the same actions. So, you know, if you want things to be different, you need to do something different, and when you're being put through the fire, it's going to require to change your actions and your habits and seek a higher power, because sometimes you're not even going to be in control of what's happening anymore. You, you know you've tried and exhausted all your options, right, like the lady that was bleeding, right, for all those years. You know she had exhausted all her options.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:She visited all these doctors and spent all this money and she exhausted all her options and she had to find a different option. And I say the same thing for us and what we go through.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm not saying that, um, it's gonna be easy yeah, for sure I'm saying that, uh, he's gonna help you through that refinement process and then, at the end of it, afterwards, you're gonna to be stronger. So I mean like that, saying, right, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. That's how a lot of people look at life. Sure, but why is it that we're going through this purification process? Or why is it that we're going through this trial, this trial, this fire?
Speaker 2:it might be because, you know, there's something greater afterwards, at the end, waiting for us that we don't really really realize yeah, I mean, I'm sure again with the passage that you know, again, god, time after time, wanted to remind Israel, like Israel was near and dear to his heart and all he wanted was for them to change their ways and to not worship idols, to not, you know, to not cause destruction amongst themselves.
Speaker 2:And constantly he was just reminding them that you know, I am your God. And and what did they do? They continued to disobey, they continued to fall in their own ways and and hurt people. And you know again, in all of that, like he didn't intend for the destruction to be as is, like he even says that in these verses, like if you, you know, if you repent, then I won't inflict all the disaster I planned. But you know again, if you do what I, what I say, what I command, like, then my plan will go as is. And you know again, it's just another example that God gives us. And God lets Jeremiah see as well, as long as we're leaning onto him and following his instruction, things can go better for us, for the better for the better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's unfortunate, though, because a lot of times, you know from our upbringings and just our stubborn ways, we still continue to go back to Looking at things the way that we've always looked at them, right.
Speaker 1:And not, and not like trusting or depending or looking towards God, because I mean even like in verse 11, right, I know we were decided, undecided, decided whether we should talk or read it, but it says you know? Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem this is what the Lord says Look, I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each of you, and reform your ways and your actions. But oh, and that was 12, no, in 12, it says. But they will reply it's no use, we will continue with our own plans. We will all follow the stubborn. Continue with our own plans. We will all follow the stubbornness of our evil hearts.
Speaker 2:Right, because, like, I hear what you're saying, but no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and I don't know why it's so much easier sometimes to do the wrong thing than to do the right thing, times to do the wrong thing than to do the right thing.
Speaker 1:You know, I remember one time, uh, I was, uh, I don't remember if I've told you this story before, but I remember one time I was like I think I was walking out of a Walgreens or something and there was like somebody that walked up to me and they were asking me for money and they were like, oh, you know, tell me a whole story about you know like why they needed the money.
Speaker 1:And I was like you know, they were asking me for money for gas. They were saying like that they were stuck in the town and that they needed, you know, and a lot of times when people do that like I don't always, you know, like agree, or you know like I try to question and see what it is Like, find out the deeper, what's going on behind the scene, kind of thing. And so I told them I was like listen, you know, let's, I'll just, I'll, just, if you could bring your car, like I'll just fill the gas for you, because I didn't want to give them the cash because I didn't want them to like spend it on drugs or something. So they brought the.
Speaker 1:I guess they were at the gas station. So at that point I just basically like went and, you know, walked across the street and paid for the gas and pumped it into their car. But it kind of felt wrong doing it, I don't know why, like my heart was rushing. It was like rushing, like I shouldn't be doing this because they're going to use something else for drugs instead of, like you know, like something was telling me, like not to do it. But then, you know, I was talking to someone about it afterwards and like they were like you know, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1:Like you did something good, like why are you? You know, like you did something good. You help them. Whether they're going to use other money for drugs or other stuff for drugs, you know that's not in your control. You know, when you weren't, when they were in front of you and they asked you for something, you helped them. You maybe didn't give them the cash for drugs necessarily, but you gave, you helped them with what you could and you didn't, you know, like, overdo it either.
Speaker 1:And and it was just like sometimes, like I, like I was, you know, I remember that I'm like man. You know, like I felt like what I was doing was wrong, but necessarily like it wasn't wrong. It just felt wrong because I felt like they were going to do something else with, you know, the money if I did give them the money, kind of thing. But I don't know. It's sometimes not sometimes. A lot of times, you know, I've realized like people always take the easy way up, the easy way out, you know, and the easy way a lot of times is something that is wrong, something that is like either morally wrong or and I can say this because, like, I've experienced a lot of things working in a dealership life and you know I'm not gonna say too much of like where I work, but I'll say that, working in the dealership world, I've seen a lot of people get taken advantage of, and it's it's not necessarily like me doing the taking advantage of, but you know I was, I would witness.
Speaker 1:you know either people um, messing things up on the car on purpose in order to get that car to come back, or, um, you know people, people not really like fixing things correctly, or people trying to sell things to people that the car didn't really need, or people not doing what they sold on the car, that they recommended on it, and just, you know things. Those are just like a few things that I can say that you know kind of kind of touch on that subject, because we can a lot of times we can say that you know we're going to do what's right, no matter what. But when people are, you know, pushed in the corner and they need to provide for their family and they need to make money, they do whatever they need to do in order to get that money.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You get what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And they don't, you know, like they don't feel regret towards it because they're doing what needs to be done in order to provide for their family, and whether that means taking advantage of people or not like and I've seen that too many times, unfortunately. Yeah, I think, with this whole, with this whole going back to the uh, did you want to say something, or?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean um, I was trying to look it up, but no, you're fine kind of what you were saying, like how people kind of take the easy way out.
Speaker 2:It just reminded me of, um, what paul says in romans 7, romans 7, 7.15. I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And it kind of goes back to like, again, like we, we have things that we know we ought to do, or you know, yeah, that we ought to do, and then we don't do it because again it costs us too much. And then the stuff that comes easy to us that we may hate also, you know, we end up doing because it's just easier that way yeah, whether that means taking advantage of someone or not taking advantage of someone.
Speaker 2:It doesn't cost us as much and morally and spiritually it's. You know it may not be right, but you know our, our flesh, like our human nature, sometimes just gears towards that because again, we're, we're here on this earth, it's, we're out of flesh and it's just, it just comes as is.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I mean, ultimately, god calls us to change our ways and to look you know, at those things and and shift on how we, how we operate right. And you if you're not a Christian today or if you feel like you know you've done so much wrong and so many things you know to take advantage of people or hurt people or whatever the case may be you know there still is an ability you know is an ability, you know there still is a possibility of redemption. You know god always has that door open, looking for you know, or he always has that door open with open arms, basically looking for you. He's been trying to reach out to you or trying to get you to pay attention to him, because it might feel right to, or it might feel easy to do those things from the start. You know, from the get-go, to get money or to you know, do whatever you need to get done to provide for your family. It might feel right taking advantage of people, but in the long run, eventually that gets to you and I feel like I could say that for myself.
Speaker 1:Right, because you know, in the automotive industry, like I was a mechanic at one point and I saw and I'm not saying that I believe in karma and all of this stuff, because I don't really believe in karma, but I do know that God fights for his people and I do believe that, you know, god always has the last say. So I've seen where some people were always taking advantage of everyone. Every single time it was like, you know, like like this one guy. I'll just say and I'm not going to mention his name or anything, but he used to do like a lot of shady work on cars and over the years, every single time, you know he would do them fast, he would work on cars fast, he would get things done.
Speaker 1:Everybody loved him because he was like fast, but that didn't necessarily mean that the work he was doing was good. He was just doing it sloppy, sloppy and, unfortunately, over the years I saw him, you know, go from you know like an, a young guy with a full of energy, to like he ended up developing cancer and he passed away, like in his mid to late 20s, not even like, I don't even think he hit 30. And you know, I think about that guy a lot and I say man, like those other things going on in his life too, not necessarily only the you know him doing things wrong and in the back end, but you know, something like that kind of like makes you think like, wow, you know, ultimately he paid for all those wrong doings he did, you know, like, not necessarily like a karma thing, but like you know, I don't know, I guess, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:God got the last, say well regardless.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I guess if that makes sense, like God got the last, say you know Well regardless.
Speaker 2:We don't know like what his salvation status was.
Speaker 1:I don't yeah, because I didn't talk to him at the end.
Speaker 2:But we do know that, you know again, there's things that can go wrong in our lives and people that intentionally do things wrong, wrong in our lives, and people that intentionally do things wrong. And you know again, I don't believe in karma, but I do know that, like you know, eventually things kind of can catch up to you um some form or another. You know, not to say I don't know one purposely, like you know.
Speaker 1:Oh, this specifically happened because you did x, y and z on just number four or whatever, but we don't know the end status of his salvation, and you know I mean, if you really think about I'm sorry what I was gonna say, if you really think about it, though, like everything comes down to a, like everything comes down to a choice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everything comes down to a choice and we could choose to do what's right or we could choose to do what's wrong.
Speaker 1:And you know we might choose to do what's wrong because it's the easier path than to do what's right.
Speaker 1:And that example I could say, like you know, if I broke something on a car, I could try to fix it in a hacked up way to like just kind of get the car back going, or I could, if something broke I broke something on the car or it broke I can go and talk to the customer, say, like you know, I'm sorry, this'm sorry this broke.
Speaker 1:Or you know that we broke this, but it's a tough conversation to have because you know you have to bring that confrontation to someone and tell them, like look, this happened that, so it's easier to try to hide it and cover it up, right, and I think about, like the whole cain and abel story right, like he kills his brother, and I know that sounds horrible, but like he's trying to like cover it up to God. Come on, like God knows, he already knew what, what happened. Um, but we're naturally, you know, and we're naturally like, instinctively, like stubborn evil. But God is asking us to be more like Him. To you know, try to to be every day to grab, to reflect every day on everything that we do and be more like Him.
Speaker 2:And that's why he offers every day. You know that salvation he offers every day. You know that salvation he offers every day, that opportunity to say, you know, hey, I'm here. I'm here with open arms and I'm able to, you know, take care of your needs. I'm able to change what you dislike about yourself or what you feel that needs changing. You know, and there's never that closed period unless you end up passing and don't take the opportunity yourself. You know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think you know we're getting close to the end here, we're going to wrap up. I do want to say, like I think that you know, God bringing these verses and this analogy to us really, you know, makes you look at it in a different sense, because God is not looking to harm us, he's not looking to do bad to us, but we have a choice. You know, we have a choice whether we want to do what God wants for us or we want to do what God doesn't want for us. Right, and maybe God has already a plan for you. Maybe already God has pre-planned things to succeed for you in a certain way and we're running away from that or we're doing the opposite of that. And in that sense, you know, he's ultimately going to be the potter that is going to shape us and form us, and you know, whether we allow ourselves to be shaped or not, then that's up to us, because he allows us, you know, that free will or for better words.
Speaker 1:But you need to really, you know, think about that and say you know whether today is that day that you want to change your life, or you want to become, or you want to commit To God and To what he has to offer you, that peace of salvation. Or do you want to just continue in your old ways and expecting a different outcome, but just continuing to do the same thing? And I feel like that's how A lot of people live their life, unfortunately. Ways and expecting a different outcome, but just continuing to do the same thing, and I feel like that's how a lot of people live their life, unfortunately. So we're here today, we're just going to you know, we want to.
Speaker 1:For those of you that haven't accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, we want to open up that opportunity to bow your head and close your eyes and say Father, god, I'm here today with open arms, seeking for your guidance, for your direction. Thank you for all that you are doing in my life. Help me to be more like you every single day. Help me to find a church and a community that is going to help edify my spirit and help grow my knowledge of you and everything that you stand for. Father, in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen, amen. Did you want to say anything before we close up?
Speaker 2:No, I think we did well with trying to explain our thoughts and we just thank each and every one of you for listening and supporting us in this podcast and hope that you come back for another episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're trying to do these On a weekly basis For the moment, since we're home for A few months as we just had a baby, so we're going to try to do them on a weekly basis and bring something new for you guys. We are Currently doing podcasts only. We're not doing video. At some point in the future, we would like to, but we're not doing video. Um, at some point in the future we would like to, but we're on spotify and apple. We're on just about any platform that you can find podcasts. We're also on facebook and instagram. We we have a different ministry on there, I believe, and it's just um, it's more of uh, reflecting kind of verse posts and whatnot. So, if you found value in what we talked about today, find us on Facebook. We are Refined in Truth Podcast. We're on Facebook, on Instagram Refined in Truth and on YouTube, same thing Refined in Truth. On YouTube. It's only audio clips, though it's not video clips. Thank you for taking the time today. God bless you all. Thank you you.
