Crazy Cracked Pots - Part III

The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him.

(Galations 3:11-12)

Embracing requires that we take something up readily or gladly. Embracing is an active process – it is more than dispassionate rule-keeping. It is a process of participating in what God has arranged for us – not trying to do it our own way all the time.

Paul sees it as an arranged life. It is not what we arrange – it is what we have presented before us by an all-knowing God and our willingness to participate in it. Participating without having to know all the details before we begin down the path – simply trusting in the leading and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. (Galations 3:11-12)

Paul is using the covenant name of God – Elohim. He is describing the creative, governing, sovereign God (he’s in control). The one absolute in power and authority is calling us to make no place for our own plan or efforts. It is not us “doing” that gains his approval – it is his “doing in us” that transforms us and renews our inner man.

The purpose of the law was to keep a sinful people in the way of salvation until Christ (the descendant) came, inheriting the promises and distributing them to us. Obviously this law was not a firsthand encounter with God. (Galations 3:19)

The heir or descendant is the only one that can inherit the provision of the will. Christ is the heir of promise – the promise was that of close, passionate relationship with a living God. He distributes what he inherited by his death / burial / resurrection to his children. We cannot get what was left to him in the will apart from being “in” him. It comes back to looking at how God makes provision – it is by trusting, not by doing.


Paul goes on to tell his readers that the purpose of the law given to Moses was to make obvious to everyone that we are (IN OURSELVES) out of right relationship with God. Therefore it is futile to devise some form of religious system for getting by our own efforts what comes only by faith. IN OURSELVES, we are nothing more than "cracked pots" incapable of being filled with the glory of our God.

It is only through the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit in our lives that the "cracks" in our character are filled - making us able to house the glory of our Holy God.  Isn't it good to know that God has a purpose of our "cracked pots"?  In his hands, they are a thing of glory.  In ours, they are nothing more than vessels that leak!