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When I was a boy, growing up in India, I often went to a potter’s house near my high school. I was fascinated watching him make clay vessels. During those visits, I never saw the potter take a hardened lump of clay and put it on his wheel to make something out of it. He, like every other potter in the world, used only soft and tender clay to work with. So does God!

The prophet Jeremiah tells us that God is like a potter and His people are the clay that He wants to form into a beautiful vessel. In order to accomplish this, God looks for soft and pliable hearts.

Man measures the quality and usefulness of a person by his education, ability and expertise. Yet God determines a person’s true value by the condition of his or her heart: “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7, niv).

I used to watch that same potter soften the clay. Day after day he would pour water on it and pound it thoroughly until it became soft. It took God 20 long years of “pouring and pounding” until Jacob’s heart became soft enough. Moses needed 40 years of desert life to become the meekest man on earth (see Numbers 12:3, kjv), who could then lead Israel out of Egypt.

Hebrews 3:15 says, “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” This verse tells us that when God works in our lives and speaks to us, we have a choice. Will we choose to soften our hearts to His work in us, or will we harden our hearts to Him and the circumstances He is allowing?

In fact, it is possible for us as believers to have a tender heart for a season, but then slowly turn and allow our hearts to become hard. This is a scary place to be. We can go years before we really begin to recognize the symptoms.

But the Lord will not just let us go. He will allow circumstances to pound us so our hearts will once again become soft and pliable. The people of Israel are the perfect example of this. Just think of how many times God allowed them to face famines, hardships, oppression, defeat and captivity in order to soften their hearts and help them return to Him!

How should we respond to God in this process? We should yield to His work and not make it more difficult for Him. The Enemy works constantly to lure us to the place in which we harden our hearts. It must be our highest priority to keep our hearts with all diligence (see Proverbs 4:23). No matter how long we’ve traveled or how soft our hearts are right now, we have the choice just around the corner to allow either blessings or trials to harden our hearts. That’s why Proverbs says “with all diligence.” Keeping our hearts will not happen casually.

What are some of the potholes we may run into along the way?

Out of all the temptations, I believe the worst is having an elevated view of ourselves. Whether it is something significant we did for the kingdom or an area in which we feel superior, we can easily slip into feeling important and not recognize that our hearts are filled with pride, arrogance and an exalted view of ourselves.

We must remind ourselves that all the gifts, talents and ministry we have are given to us by the Lord. It’s all God’s grace. Look for opportunities to humble yourself. Choose to submit to one another (see Ephesians 5:21) and lay down your own preferences for the sake of others. Don’t fight for your rights, and be willing to give up something. Grace is given to those who are humble (see James 4:6), not to those who are right or feel indispensable.

A hardened heart is contagious. Unless we are careful to guard our hearts, we will be poisoned by others’ negative attitudes and talk. It can begin with one person in a church or ministry who is dissatisfied, bitter, critical and unwilling to change. Soon the atmosphere of love among the brothers and sisters is replaced by disunity, anger and hardness of heart toward each other and the Lord.

Don’t keep company with these people who sow disunity. Love them and pray for them, but have no part with them. You and I are not strong enough to withstand the poison they spread. It’s in the atmosphere, and we breathe it in whether we intend to or not.

Be especially careful to whom you go to receive your counsel. Don’t go to a brother or sister who is not mature in the Lord and who will sympathize and agree with your complaints and tears. Go instead to someone who is mature enough to help you see the hand of God and His purpose behind the things you face.

Any form of rebellion is like a tiny seed that, if not dealt with, will grow and eventually harden our heart and bring destruction. You must stamp it out as soon as you see it, whether it starts in your own mind or someone else’s words. Don’t let it linger. It will ultimately bring forth death in your life.

Maintaining the tenderness of your heart and humility depends on your honesty before God. Repent and run to the cross—a thousand times a day if need be. Whenever you seek the limelight, want to take credit, get hurt or have your expectations unfulfilled and your plans not work out, don’t fight; go to the cross.

God always seeks to do one thing with us on the Potter’s wheel—not to make us more powerful and famous, but to make us more like His Son, the Lord Jesus.

Are you that pliable clay?

Destined to Soar © 2009 by KP Yohannan, the president and founder of Gospel for Asia. It was written with the intention of encouraging and edifying the Body of Christ. To learn more about Gospel for Asia or to receive additional free resources, visit Gospel for Asia’s website.

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Naaman was raging with anger. He had traveled all the way from Syria with chariots full of gold, silver and expensive gifts for Elisha—and now the prophet wouldn’t even grant him a one-minute audience. And what was worse, Elisha’s servant passed a message to him that he should dip seven times in the Jordan River to be healed of his leprosy (see 2 Kings 5:9–12).

It was a simple, inexpensive ritual he was supposed to perform. No one could make fun of him because he was far away from his homeland.

But the mighty captain of the Syrian army was not about to follow these stupid instructions. Why? These instructions were not his own thoughts.

In his fury, Naaman exclaimed, “Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper” (2 Kings 5:11, kjv, emphasis mine).

However, the servants of Naaman realized that their master was about to pass up his only possible chance to get healed. Fearing they had made the long trip with all its hardship and headache for nothing, they pleaded with him. Naaman finally calmed down, obeyed the prophet’s instructions and experienced the healing power of the God of Israel (see 2 Kings 5:13).

Here’s the frightening truth: Naaman came as a leper and was about to go back as a leper, to live a lonely, rejected, depressed and forsaken life. In the end he would have died of his disease, all because he thought the wrong thoughts.

This can be our experience as well!

Our own thoughts are one of the greatest enemies of a life of faith that honors God.

We may pray, fast, agonize, weep and cry out to God about a matter, but we receive no answer. Why? Like Naaman, we cling to our own thoughts as to how God should go about answering our request. And with our boundaries, we tie the hands of God and prevent Him from moving on our behalf.

Isaiah 55:6–11 gives us a clear picture of how much the Living God wants to abundantly pardon, bless us, answer our prayers and fulfill His wonderful promises. But those who come to Him must give up one thing: their own thoughts. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him” (Isaiah 55:7).

In the following verses, God gives us the reason why it is so important for us to give up our own thoughts: “ ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts’ ” (Isaiah 55:8–9).

Then God goes on explaining that His Word (or His thoughts) works just as the rain and the snow that come down from heaven and bring forth fruit: “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).

The whole message God wants to tell us is that if we want to experience God, we must first abandon our thoughts and then start thinking His.

Why aren’t our thoughts as believers in Jesus automatically in alignment with God’s thoughts? The Apostle Paul explains that our natural mind is always in opposition to God and what He thinks: “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be” (Romans 8:7).

You see, when we were born again, our spirit was regenerated by the Holy Spirit, but the house is still the same. That means our body and our mind, left to themselves, will continue in their old ways. That’s why the Bible tells us clearly what we must do to bring both of them into subjection to God: “ . . . that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. . . . And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:1–2).

It is our responsibility, not God’s, to get our mind renewed. How? We renew our minds by changing our entire thought process through God’s Word.

Naaman the Syrian first had to align his thinking with the word of God spoken to him by the prophet Elisha before he could receive God’s answer to his problem.

We too must make the same decision. If we want to see victory over the sin with which we struggle, our families saved, our needs met and this world won to Christ in our lifetime, we must consciously choose to abandon all our own natural (and even religious) thoughts and begin to think God’sthoughts. All things are possible with God if we believe—as God thinks.

Believe Him!

Destined to Soar © 2009 by KP Yohannan, the president and founder of Gospel for Asia. It was written with the intention of encouraging and edifying the Body of Christ. To learn more about Gospel for Asia or to receive additional free resources, visit Gospel for Asia’s website.

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A well-known preacher flies into town for a citywide crusade. He expects to be greeted at the airport by a delegation of prestigious individuals. Instead, an old taxi driver holding a piece of cardboard with the preacher’s name misspelled waits at baggage claim and then drops him off at a second-class hotel. The room is small, the bed uncomfortable, the service lousy, and there is not even a fruit basket or welcome note. When no one calls or takes him out to dinner, he feels deeply offended and says to himself, “How dare they treat me like this? Don’t they know who I am? They don’t deserve my ministry. That’s the last time I’m coming to this place.”

The next morning, however, all his honor and good fortunes are quickly restored after the organizers discover that their guest speaker had become a victim of miscommunication.

Could it be that this incident was not an unfortunate mixup, but rather the Lord testing His servant’s humility? After all, He had sent this man to represent Himself, the Christ of the New Testament. And in the Gospels, we see so clearly that Jesus was genuinely humble in His dealings with others.

What was the key to Christ’s humility? It was deeply rooted in His understanding and accepting the truth that the greatest glory in heaven and on earth is to be the servant of all. That’s the reason why prophetic passages like Isaiah 53 portray Him as a servant, and Psalm 40:8 describes Him saying: “I delight to do Your will, O my God.”

If there is no greater glory than being a servant of all, then much of our 21st-century Church is miles away from the pattern Christ left us. Our worldly view of glory is precisely where we need to get our understanding set straight.

The moment we realize that it is God’s will for us to follow Christ’s humility, we often get this negative feeling that we are about to become a broken, selfless creature everyone can trample on.

However, the humility God calls us to is far more than being broken from our pride and sin. It is something entirely positive and wonderful. It is participating in the very nature of Jesus.

Pride caused Lucifer, the most beautiful, powerful and intelligent angel, to fall and become Satan, who led man into sin. And it was Christ’s humility that saved and lifted fallen man from the pit of hell to sit on His throne with Him. Shouldn’t that amazing truth give us enough reason to follow Christ’s humility?

When we seek to follow Christ and become like Him, we often start by making a long list of spiritual exercises we plan to do to make it happen. However, the foundation of becoming like Christ in humility—as well as in all other virtues—begins with this one step: “Take My yoke upon you” (Matthew 11:29).

If I carry a yoke on my neck, it means that I no longer stand up straight. I once saw a postcard with the words “Not I, but Christ” written on it. To illustrate, the artist had drawn a man standing up tall inside the letter “I.” Then he drew the same man inside the letter “C,” but now the man had to bend over to fit.

This humility of Christ will not become a reality in my life by accident, by wishing for it, by studying about it or by fasting and praying for it. It only comes by my deliberate willingness to obey what Jesus told me to do: to take His yoke upon me. That means from now on, Jesus and I are yoked together. Where He goes, I go; where He turns, I turn; when He stops to comfort a widow, bless a child or wash His disciples’ feet, I do the same.

As I learn from Him how to walk under His yoke, I discover that the yoke is easy and my heart is at peace. And by submitting to His yoke and imitating Him, His gentleness and humility will become mine.

My dear friend, will you take this first step today and decide to take His yoke upon you? There is no other way to develop the humility that represents the Lord Jesus.

Follow Him in humility.

Destined to Soar © 2009 by KP Yohannan, the president and founder of Gospel for Asia. It was written with the intention of encouraging and edifying the Body of Christ. To learn more about Gospel for Asia or to receive additional free resources, visit Gospel for Asia’s website.

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John the Baptist sat in Herod’s prison. Knowing that his life hung by a very thin thread, he sent two of his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” (Luke 7:20). What had happened to the mighty, fearless preacher who called his whole nation to repentance and accused the Pharisees of being a brood of vipers?

John was born to elderly parents—an incredible miracle. Growing up, he must have heard them say countless times, “You are the one the prophet Isaiah wrote about, the one who will come in the spirit of Elijah to prepare the way of the Lord.” John had absolutely no doubt about his identity, and he knew how to answer those who asked if he was the Messiah. “I am not the Christ,” he confessed. “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. . . . It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me” (John 1:20, 23, 27).

Shortly afterward, John publicly declared Jesus to be the Son of God and Israel’s Messiah, proclaiming, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). This declaration testifies of the deep knowledge, revelation, conviction and understanding John had about God’s purpose.

In prison, however, he wondered whether or not he had made a fatal mistake. John the Baptist—of whom Jesus testified that he was the greatest man born on earth (see Matthew 11:11)—went through the worst confusion and doubt anyone can entertain: He questioned whether he’d failed his mission and misled his nation by declaring the wrong person to be the Messiah.

The reason for his confusion was that he expected Jesus to use His power to rescue him and set up His kingdom.

Amazingly, Jesus didn’t condemn him. Neither did He say to John’s disciples, “You mean John sent you to ask Me these questions? It shows that he has lost it completely. I never thought he would fall by the wayside like anyone else.” Instead, Jesus responded with understanding and compassion. First, He healed many who were sick, blind and lame, and He delivered those afflicted with evil spirits.

Then He told John’s disciples, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me” (Luke 7:22–23).

What Jesus was saying to John was this: “John, it’s all right. You are expecting Me to snap My fingers and get you out of prison and vindicate you. You are a righteous and wonderful individual, but that’s not what I am going to do.

“When you serve Me, you will go through times of deep struggles. But if you keep looking at what I, the Lord, am doing, you will see that you have a part in all of it.

“John, don’t forget that these blind people now see, the crippled walk and millions who were lost and bound for hell are turning to the Father. John, it’s worth it.”

Jesus didn’t chide John for his doubt, but He encouraged him and strengthened his arms. How do we deal with others when they go through struggles?

When I was younger, I remember how aggressive, proud and absolutely certain I was about everything. I used to be so critical and judgmental toward other brothers and sisters who were going through difficult times full of doubt and confusion. Some of them wanted to quit the ministry. Instead of showing compassion for them, I would come up with Bible verses to preach at them.

Sometimes I did the same thing to my wife. One day, when I came home, her eyes were all red, and I asked her what was wrong. But before she could answer, I told her five Scripture references.

“Can you please stop preaching at me?” she asked. “I know all these Bible verses myself. The whole day I struggled with the kids and things at home. All I want is for you to understand what I am going through.”

Let us learn from Jesus!

The next time we see our brother or sister discouraged and confused, let us not say with our mouth, “I will pray for you,” while in our heart we are saying, “You creep, don’t you know better?” Instead, let us encourage them to keep looking at what Jesus is doing and see the difference that their lives are making for the kingdom of God.

And one more thing: When Jesus talked to the crowds about John, He never mentioned John’s doubt and confusion. Instead, He made the most amazing statements about John’s life and ministry.

Can we do the same with our brothers and sisters? Let us be willing to forget their problems and times of discouragement and see only the amazing things God has done in and through their lives. And then let us believe that He will do even greater things through them in the future.

Will you be God’s instrument of compassion and encouragement?

Destined to Soar © 2009 by KP Yohannan, the president and founder of Gospel for Asia. It was written with the intention of encouraging and edifying the Body of Christ. To learn more about Gospel for Asia or to receive additional free resources, visit Gospel for Asia’s website.

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