Luke 21:34 But take heed to yourselves and be on your guard, lest your hearts be overburdened and depressed (weighed down) with the giddiness and headache and nausea of self-indulgence, drunkenness, and worldly worries and cares pertaining to [the business of] this life, and [lest] that day come upon you suddenly like a trap or a noose; (AMP)

I use the Amplified version of the bible here because I do not believe that enough can be said about all the things of this world that we allow to distract us away from our mission. Many of the versions of this one passage carry big bold print which all contain the word WARNING. So once again take heed.

Luke 21:25-26 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

The complexities of these days are nothing more than a distraction from our calling. We are the Lord’s ministers of reconciliation. Yes there is great danger in the world, yes there is great injustice in the world, and yes man’s hearts are failing under the pressures of the enemy,

More than that, there are still millions of lost souls waiting to hear of a way to escape, to be set free, to come to a saving grace knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Let us not forget our calling.

Job 2:8 And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. (ESV)

Sitting in church this morning and listening to our pastor speak on this moment in Job’s life, painted an ugly and disturbing picture in my mind. It was one that was not part of the sermon today, but one that I could see, and it disturbed me.

Jeremiah 18:4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

Psalm 31:12 I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.

Imagine if you would a man that tries to take and remove the ugliness of his condition with the broken pieces of his life. This is the image I was left with this morning.

As pathetic as that image is of Job sitting in the ashes of his ruined life scrapping at those boils with a broken nasty filthy piece of pottery, isn’t that exactly what we do in this life without Jesus? Nothing we can do to make things better with the broken pieces of our lives.

We need to place ourselves back in the hands of the potter to be made into a new vessel.

Even more so should we accept the molding and not try and pick up the broken pieces of the old vessel and try and make them fit into the new one.

But we do just that don’t we?