During a prayer session early last year the Holy Spirit spoke to me and expanded on the potter and the clay. It's MUCH deeper than you could have imagined!
After having a moment like this with God, my goal is to explain everything He told me and share with you the wisdom He imparted on me.
Early 2020 during a prayer session one afternoon, the Holy Spirit began talking to me and said, "The potter and the clay". I quickly replied, "Yes Lord, you are the potter and I am the clay, mold me Lord", and the Holy Spirit then asked me, "What is clay made out of?", I replied, "Dirt?" and He promptly replied, "Not just any kind of dirt, special dirt that when mixed with water holds it's shape." He continued with, "The Holy Spirit is the water, which holds the shape God molds you into", He paused and asked me, "How does clay hold it's shape?" and I answered as best I could, "It's put in a furnace?" and He happily responded, "Yes, the furnace is tribulation, death, or the rapture."
I was ecstatic after this encounter with God! And after some time, I went to make my written notes to online notes, and the Holy Spirit expounded even more! Let me walk you through the whole journey of wisdom Jesus Christ took me on!
Jeremiah 18:6
“Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.
This the the verse God was referring to when He told me, "The potter and the clay". Clay isn't just your regular dirt, it's highly fine dirt that is absent of surrounding organic material. And when you add water to this special dirt, it can now hold a shape. We are very different from the people around us, God has ordained us for salvation and we are the temple for the Holy Spirit. God has set us aside, special to Him and a vessel for the Holy Spirit.
We see this in scripture clear as day, stating how special we are to God: 1 Peter 2:9 "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light". And no one can know Jesus Christ without God first revealing Himself to us, which is what also makes us special: Romans 1:19 "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.".
When you're molding clay it can't be dry, you add water first so everything goes smoothly. As we spend time in prayer getting molded by God, the Holy Spirit is the water that makes the whole process go by smoother. Just imagine trying to mold clay without water, it cracks, crumbles, and falls apart! If you don't give the Holy Spirit the room to move in your life to move, you're in for a rough time! Your lack of Holy Spirit dries you out and you start working against God.
Many of us in the body of Christ don't know anything about the Holy Spirit and end up living a life never truly happy, never walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, and never being able to live the life Jesus Christ calls us to live (Just to name a few).
The furnace God was talking about is, somehow you've died and are now in heaven. The furnace is death, and in that furnace the water is pulled out of the clay and the shape is held forever. In heaven, you will be the perfected "pottery" God created you to be. You'll be absent of sin, and in Heaven, rather than having God with YOU (the Holy Spirit in you), it will be the other way around. You will be with God, you will be in His house! John 14:3 "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also". The role of the Holy Spirit here is to do MANY things, but all these things are to get us on the narrow road, keep us on the narrow road, and use us as a vessel to get MORE on the narrow road. And when, by God's power you make it to heaven, the dynamic changes. But it can be summed us as, on Earth God is in us, in Heaven we are in God.
So now that you understand the surface level revelation, let me share the deeper depths of this revelation!
Where do you find clay... the Riverbed!
The riverbed is full of fishes, water life, and at the bottom of it all, dirt. All of humankind is created out of dirt, Genesis 3:19 "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return". I'm going to refer to saved Christians as "us clay" from this point forward.
No matter how far along you are in your walk with Christ, we clay were picked out of the riverbed by the mercy God gave us. Before were were picked out of the riverbed (Jesus is the one who picked us out!) we were no different from the rest of the dirt that surrounded us. We thought just like them, we talked just like them and we couldn't tell ourselves apart from the rest of the dirt. Only out of love did Jesus, who is the only one who knows what clay looks like, spot us out and pick us out from the surrounding dirt.
But Jesus didn't just pick us out from the riverbed to have a lump of clay on His potter's wheel. He puts us through the sanctification process. Sanctification is a process and is always active, there is never a "peak" moment of Holiness reached. You and I are His bride, a faithful bride doesn't just reach a certain amount of days of faithfulness before cheating. No, she is faithful always. God wants us to be just as faithful and the Bible gives us clear instructions on that process. My goal isn't to get into sanctification as a whole. But when clay is picked up from the riverbed, it must first be cleaned, sticks have to get plucked out, rocks have to get removed, and little bugs have to get thrown out before the molding process can begin.
This purging process takes as long as you want. You can be one of those Christians who thinks it's ok to get drunk from time to time, or like some women in Christ who have no sense of biblical modestly. It's not a heaven or hell issue, it's faithfulness. Why get in a relationship with God to "see how close you can get to cheating, before it's considered cheating" ? The response God wants us to have is, "Yes Lord, purge me! Clean me up and purify me through and through!" What else does it mean to work out your own salvation with fear and trebling? Philippians 2:12 "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling"
One last note I'll make on the sanctification process is what goes on during this process. Deliverance from Demons, burdens removed, stress taken away, and trauma in life should be getting removed by the Holy Spirit in this part. I speak from experience, God violently delivered me of several demons over the course of a day and I was sick for the next 3 days. This part isn't pretty, but it's necessary for you to be all Christ has called you to be.
A healthy riverbed has flowing water running through it. The Holy Spirit is the water that is flowing in the river, but how does He get there? Preaching! Preaching is the act of sharing the gospel to all creation, to all forms of dirt both clay and regular dirt in hopes that God will open their eyes to His truth. John 7:38 "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."
You don't need to be a preacher to preach the truth of God! Jesus says there is one requirement, "whoever believes in me" so believe, preach and watch God turn the riverbeds of your job, neighborhood, family, and even friends into a river flowing with the Holy Spirit!