The Pot is Not the Potter Insights on Being Used by God in Discipleship And the Dangers of Self-Lordship By Pastor Leonard Roy Harris   There is a difference between wanting to disciple for the Lord and wanting to be used by the Lord in discipleship. The difference is almost as distinct as that of intellectually knowing about God and personally knowing God. Turn away from and cleanse yourself from to prepare to be God’s Instrument. 2 Timothy 2:19-21 .  “Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: "The Lord knows those who are his," and, "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness." The Lord will use those who belong to him as tools in discipleship ministry. Those who belong to him are those who have received Jesus as Lord giving them the firm foundation of Christ Jesus. A first step in preparing to be used by God is to intentionally identify and turn away from all personal wickedness.  “In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.” The work of discipleship as of all work of the Lord is a noble work. The goal is to prepare to be used by the Lord in his strength, not to prepare to use self for the Lord in our own strength. We want to be his holy instrument and not our own instrument. After all, we do not belong to ourselves anymore, we have been bought with a price and are to glorify the Lord and not ourselves as mentioned in I Corinthians 5:19-20, and Romans 12:1-2. We must prepare to be used by God in the noble work of discipleship by cleansing ourselves from any ignoble activities or practices that would bring shame on the Lord and his work. He will not use us in his work as his instruments if we are not cleansed of all self-pleasing, world pleasing and men pleasing motives because these are ignoble motives. Our sole motive must be to please the Lord and prepare to be used by the Lord and to maintain that preparation on a daily basis. This is mentioned in the great intercessory prayer of Paul the Apostle in Colossians 1:9-14 We must see that taking responsibility to use God’s means of cleansing ourselves will make it possible for the Lord to select us for noble purposes, make us holy in the righteousness of Christ and not our own righteousness. It will make us useful to our master. It is better to be useful to the Master of Discipleship than to have a Master’s in discipleship only. It will prepare us to do any good work including the work of biblical discipleship. If the desire is to disciple for God the emphasis can be on information, head knowledge and training and operating in our own strength. We take what we know and learn and we use it under our control and initiative. We fit people into categories and discipleship systems and plans that we have for them for their walk with the Lord. We depend on our techniques and training and sufficiency and expertise and superior knowledge as the source of the guidance we offer. If we are not careful we may find ourselves taking on the role of the Holy Spirit and in a desire to build our ministry and make our disciples we are not involved in His ministry allowing him to use us to make His disciples! Being self-willed and self-directed keeps one from being used by the Lord in ministry. Brokenness is a key ingredient necessary to operate in the power and grace of God in His counseling ministry. Jesus said that unless the seed fall in the ground and dies it remains alone, but that once it dies it brings forth much fruit Let’s look at John 12:23-26 “ Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Jesus is preparing to tell us something about our glorification through explaining his glorification. To be glorified is to fulfill the purpose for which we are sent. Jesus’ hour had come to fulfill his earthly purpose. It was through this that he would glorify the Father. In the same way, the Lord has good works that he preordained for each one of us to fulfill and in their fulfillment the Lord is glorified and we with him Ephesians 2:10 tells us this. “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.” Falling to the ground sounds a lot like humility doesn’t it? Like falling to the ground at the feet of Jesus acknowledging him as the boss, as the Lord! Dying sounds a lot like dying to self, sin, Satan and society. Dying to our way, our will, our agenda, our ministry, our prominence, our recognition, our fame and our ego! If we do not die, the life of Christ in us will not be revealed according to all of 2 Corinthians Chapter 4. If it is not revealed in its unique way then the Lord has nothing to use uniquely in ministry. All he has is a person who has received Jesus but is not bearing forth the fruit of the Holy Spirit in their own life and the fruit of souls in their world. This person is like the one described in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 who builds their Christian life with wood, hay and straw. It can be like the one described in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30 who buried their talent in the ground and produced nothing.  “ But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” The fruit of the Spirit grows as we go through the process of dying daily. It grows as we are humbled. It grows as we are broken. It grows as we are crucified. Souls are born into the Kingdom as we go out into our world with the word and ministry of reconciliation begging mankind to be reconciled to God as mentioned in 2 Corinthians 5:17-20. These two aspects of bearing fruit are mentioned in John 15:1-8 (the fruit of the Spirit) and John 15:15-17 (the fruit of souls). In our worlds we take on the labors and afflictions of Christ allowing the Lord to pour out our lives as a drink offering on the sacrifice and suffering for the faith in Christ, not in us, of others as mentioned in Philippians 2:17. You see sacrifice is most often the doorway to service for the Master. To be fruitful we have to die daily and throughout the day to self-lordship and our own self-centered life agenda. We must humbly submit ourselves to Jesus as our Lord and to the agenda of picking up our cross and following him in the proclamation of the Gospel of the Kingdom in our world. We must not be ashamed of Him and his words  "The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. " One application of this verse is we love our lifestyle and life agenda and life purpose which in the old self tends to be centered around self since the old self is involved in love of self. If we love pleasing ourselves through our lifestyle in this world we must lose and hate that. Luke 14:26 says that if we do not hate the self-centered life that we cannot he his disciples. We must be transformed by the mind-set stated in I John 4:16-17 that in this world, we are like Him. We are in this world to glorify the Father and not ourselves. We are not here to do anything on our own but in yielding our will to do what we see the Father doing in the scriptures and in our everyday lives according to the scriptures. We are to use our will by yielding our will to the will of the Father as we see what he is doing. Jesus mentioned this in John 5:19-20 "Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be." If we are going to serve Jesus in discipleship or any ministry we must follow him and not ourselves. If we follow Jesus we will be where he is at in a person’s life and he can use us as instruments of discipleship in that person’s life. Let me emphasize that he cannot use us if we are following ourselves and not him! We are servants of who we follow. If we are following self we are servants of self! O! What a joy to be with Jesus in his discipleship or any of his ministries! "My Father will honor the one who serves me." Being honored by the Father is through serving Jesus by following him as we see where he is going in the scriptures and in our lives and our world according to the scriptures and yielding our will to do what we see Him doing. We see him being loving and kind and patient and gentle and friendly and the list goes on as we choose to yield our will so he can do this through us!  I often believe that this can be applied to our sense of self. Our self-centeredness and ego and desire to please self must die for us to be used by the Lord. It is a daily process of death by the cross as mentioned in Galatians 2:20, Luke 9:23 and Mark 8:34. No matter how great the accomplishments or how greatly we are used we must depend on the Lord and his grace and not ourselves or our works. The cross of Jesus Christ keeps us in God’s hands of grace, so that he can use us. Let’s remember 2 Corinthians Chapters 4, 6, 11 and 12 which provides rich teaching about the grace of God available as we allow Him to break us and do not resist the breaking! We must keep 2 Corinthians 3:1-6 in sharp focus. “Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?” Being commended and recommended can become very important to us. In this sense we may be trying to be recognized for what we do by our “success” possibly according to worldly standards. Secondly, we may want to have our success acknowledged by others as we are recommended for greater honor. This opens us up for pride and self- sufficiency "You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. " Books and tapes and videos and other tokens of “our” ministry in themselves are not wrong but if the motive is to be esteemed in the eyes of man and not to serve Jesus by following him as he directs us to write and produce materials and helps then it becomes wrong. Our motive is to allow the Lord to use us as pens in the hands of the Holy Spirit to write the image of Christ Jesus on tablets of human hearts. They are not our letter or our “project” but they are a letter from Christ, we are just the instruments and “our ministry” is a ministry of being a Holy Tool or instrument that the Holy Spirit can use. "Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God."  This is where our confidence is. In being used by the Holy Spirit. If we are fulfilling our ministry to use all of the available spiritual tools to be Holy as He is Holy in all of our inner life and outer behavior and not in using ourselves. We know that God will use us as we maintain our cleansing and Holiness through the righteousness of Christ. We do this through the power of God in our brokenness. "Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”  Our competency is in being used by the Holy Spirit as ministers of a new covenant. We minister the word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit as instruments in the hands of the Holy Spirit and not as instruments in our own hands using God’s word in our own mind and intellect. It is not by our might or by our power but by the Spirit that God’s work in the lives of people is done according to Zechariah 4:6. Paul stated this clearly in Colossians 1:27-29 about that which has been invested in the human heart once one receives Jesus as Lord. “To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." . God is the only one who can make it known among the unsaved that the remedy for the condition of sin in that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) Is Christ in them, the hope of bringing glory to God as his image is created in the heart. "We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ." Our goal is not to build our ministry but to present everyone perfected into the image of Jesus Christ by proclaiming Him and warning about following him and teaching everyone how to obey Him. This is in making disciples of Jesus. We do not want to preach ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as servants for Jesus sake 2 Corinthians 4:5 "To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.” Our goal in ministry is here. Our energy is God working powerfully in us by the Holy Spirit. One must qualify to be used by God in His discipleship ministry. We must back off of the concept of building our discipleship ministry and move more towards qualifying to be used in the Lord’s discipleship ministry. If we say our ministry we can say biblically our ministry in the Lord or in his grace or in Christ Jesus. We must never leave the Lord out of it in our thinking or in our presentation. Yes, we must have a through knowledge of the scriptures and its explanation of the nature of man and the nature of his problems. We must have a strong biblical concept of discipleship and I say it carefully here: a biblical theology of discipleship based on a foundation in Christ Jesus. If we are going to be useful instruments in the hands of the Holy Spirit we must be full of God’s word and full of God’s Spirit and standing in the righteousness of Christ Jesus. Then he will always use us in His ministry. He is the potter, we are the clay being transformed into a pot to hold and magnify His glory and not our own and to be used for his glory.  “ I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another.” Romans 15:14