Thursday: God as a Sculptor
God is also a sculptor, but not one limited to granite or marble. Instead, He sculpts our characters. He can take a sinful human being and mold and chisel and hammer away until that person reflects something of heaven’s glory. God has given extensive evidence of such profound skills. From cover to cover in Scripture, we find God taking persons we might disregard as unattractive and unworthy and fashioning them into something beautiful.
Who are some characters in the Bible who needed a bit of spiritual sculpting, as it were? What needed changes were made in their lives? For instance, Jacob (Gen. 32:22–30); David (Psalm 51); Peter (Luke 22:31, 32); Paul (Acts 9:1–22). Whom else can you think of, and what kind of changes came about in them?
Another good example is Mary Magdalene. “Mary had been . . . a great sinner, but Christ knew the circumstances that had shaped her life. . . . It was He who had lifted her from despair and ruin. Seven times she had heard His rebuke of the demons that controlled her heart and mind. She had heard His strong cries to the Father in her behalf. She knew how offensive is sin to His unsullied purity, and in His strength she had overcome. . . . [This woman] who had fallen, and whose mind had been a habitation of demons, was brought very near to the Saviour in fellowship and ministry. . . . Mary stood beside the Cross. . . . Mary was first at the tomb after His resurrection. It was Mary who first proclaimed a risen Saviour.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 568.
Salvation history is full of divine creativity, restoring in fallen men and women the lost “image of God.” The gospel is no cosmetic facelift but a matter of life-changing orientation running deep and swift in its cleansing, shaping, and beautifying power. The gospel of Jesus Christ creatively builds with integrity and wholeness. Genuine newness is the result of an inward dynamic at work, a divine creativity that restores beauty to a fallen, sinful life.
Sculpting involves chiseling, filing, maybe even the breaking off of parts. What areas in your life need to be sculpted a bit more? How much resistance do you put up during what isn’t always a fun process?
It is true God sculpters sinful nature into beautiful sinless souls, but it is left for us to avail ourselves to God to make those changes in our lives.
Yes I believe it is because God’s love is a cotinuing love unless we stop it by ignoring the plea of the Holy Spirit. God will always continue to shape us as long as we make ourselves available.
Brethren , if only we could fully avail ourselves to God The Sculptor and let Him do what He knows best for His image to be seen in us. We should not mind the pain, the length of time. No sculpture ever tells the Scupltor how to be shaped. May God help us through the Holy Spirit. Happy Sabbath
The process is never welcome but the result no one regrets. Unfortunately we choose to see the bad during the process. What at one point seems to be the very thing destined to reap us through – it being scandalous,nasty and so on, can in fact become the very thing that draws us close to God and loved ones.