Marred Beyond All Recognition

Isaiah 52:14 As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:

It has been quite awhile since I have written for this blog, I think like most 2020 was for me, a year that wasn't expected with many trials and tribulations. I can say that with no doubt 2020 was by far the hardest year I have faced in my life so far. It was even harder than the year I lost my mother. This however is not the place to detail everything that I have been through, if you are interested in learning about all the trials and tribulations that I have faced in 2020 please follow this link to my new Forum On The Potters Wheel.

I will say that this Post is directly tied to that Forum and the idea of being on the Potters Wheel so I greatly encourage you to take a few moments to read it so that you will have a better understanding and context of this Post. In short and a quick summary in the past year I have lost my job, lost my marriage, lost my family, lost my dogs, lost my house, lost positions in my Church, and watched my Father go thru a year long battle with Cancer and losing part of his foot due to circulation problems.

It is no light thing to say that in the past year I have felt like my life has been marred beyond all recognition. The place that I am, the way that I am living at the moment in no way resembles remotely anything which it had a year ago. I have been crushed Mentally, Emotionally, Physically and worst of all Spiritually. Every aspect of my life has been completely disfigured and it would be a lie to say that at many points during this past year my Faith has been rocked. I also believe that I am not alone in this either. I am positive that many of you have also experienced hard times in the past year, and you too may feel like you and your life no longer resemble what it previously did. That you too may feel as tho you have been marred beyond all recognition.

It is from this place, from this position, from this feeling of being marred beyond all recognition, that after hours of crying out, praying begging God to show up, that He began to enlighten me to some things in His Word that showed me a completely different perspective of what was and can be accomplished when we find ourselves in a place where we feel that we have been marred beyond all recognition. If you read the link to The Potters Wheel, then you have seen that the concept of that Blog revolves around the idea found in Scripture in Jeremiah 18, where the pot that is marred is put back onto the Potters Wheel for the Potter to reform it as He pleases. In the eyes of the World, if something is marred then it has become useless, and more than likely needs to be thrown away, discarded, destroyed. I can tell you that that is exactly how I have felt over the past few months, that I being marred have become useless, and needed to be discarded and thrown away. However even tho I have felt that way, and I believe many others have felt that way, God has shown me differently about what happens to things that are marred when placed in His hands.

The most powerful thing God has shown me about being marred is contained in the Scripture quoted above from Isaiah. That Scripture is all about Jesus Christ, it was foretelling what Christ would endure when He came to this Earth, took on Flesh and presented Himself as a Sacrifice for our Sins. It is a description of what Christ looked like, Physically, Mentally, Emotionally and Spiritually as He was being led to and put upon the Cross. Scriptures tell us all about the Physical punishment that Christ endured, from the beatings, the mockings, the crown of thorns, the spitting upon, tearing of his beard, being found naked upto the nails driven into His hands and feet.

Scripture relates to us the Mental and Emotional torment that Christ endured, one of the greatest pictures being Him in the Garden, alone while His disciples slept, as He cried out for the cup to pass, as He sweat drops of blood. I can't even imagine the stress that Christ was under at that time, knowing what awaited Him, having to endure the punishment of all Sins, let alone the Physical beatings and Crucifixion that He would encounter. I have found myself in situations where I was worried about what the future held, fearing the worst, and the amount of Mental and Emotional turmoil that I experienced, how awful it was but it was nothing compared to what Christ was going thru during that time.

Sitting and thinking about what the idea of marred means, which in the Hebrew comes from the root word shachath meaning perhaps to go to ruin I can only dwell on the paradoxical nature of how Christ was found to be in that position, to be marred, to be ruined. Here we see Jesus, who is God in Flesh, who was absolutely perfect in every sense of the word, who did no wrong, who loved perfectly, who helped all who came to Him, who walked righteously, who never hurt anyone at all and yet while being absolutely perfect found Himself at a point in His life where He was marred beyond all recognition.

According to Scripture no longer did He resemble Himself Physically or any man due to the beatings. His face must have been swollen and disfigured to a point where unless you witnessed Him prior you would no longer be able to tell it was Jesus being put upon the Cross. He also didn't resemble the man He was before being turned over to the authorities, the man with the power to heal the sick, walk on water, command legions of demons, and raise the dead. There was Jesus marred in His Spiritual position, and was mocked over and over for being in that position as the cried out for Him to come off the Cross if He was so powerful.

Obviously none of us can compare to what Jesus endured, He is the epitome of being marred beyond recognition, but I wonder how many people have felt a similar thing, that have found themselves in a position where they felt as tho they have been marred beyond anything they resembled prior, whether that is Physically, Mentally, Emotionally or Spiritually. As I related before, where I have found myself recently in the past year I can relate to the feeling of being marred beyond recognition. Here is the crazy thing tho, the thing I want to impart to you, as God imparted to me when I was praying about all of this. While the World views being marred as a terrible state to be in, one that leads to destruction, God doesn't.

What do you mean by that you may be wondering, well let me ask you a question, what happened exactly to Jesus when He was said to be marred beyond all recognition? If we are to take a step back from our Carnal view point of what was going on when Christ was said to be marred, to be coming to ruin, we see that the exact opposite of what we see as His ruin was happening. To the World Christ was being destroyed, He was being abused, taken down a notch. He was being reduced to nothing, He was being killed and His entire Life was ending in sorrow and misery.

Yet that isn't what was really happening, what was really happening was the second greatest thing in all of Human History was taking place. While in the Worlds eyes Christ Life was being ruined and destroyed, in Gods eyes Christ was fulfilling all the Scriptures, Christ was taking all the punishment we deserve, Christ was reconciling the World to God. God in Christ was turning everything on its head, when Christ was sensed to be His weakest He was in fact His most powerful taking upon Himself all the Sins of the World, making all Humanity no longer cast out from God and instead bringing all Humanity back into proper relation with God.

This is what God wanted me to see and wants you to see, even tho to the World, even to ourselves in our Carnal minds, or Worldly viewpoint, our lives or parts of our lives seem to be in ruins, that they are marred beyond recognition, it doesn't mean that they are actually ruined or destroyed. No in fact it is from this place, one in which we find ourselves outcast from the World that God can and will step in and use it for His Glory and our benefit.

Scripture tell us that Gods Strength is made perfect in our weakness and we can see in Christs Humanity, in His most weakened state, in fact Gods Strength was being displayed. The lower Christs Flesh was taken, the stronger God was shown to be, up to the point that in Death, the complete lowest point of anyones Flesh, Gods power was fully displayed in Christ Resurrection, the overcoming of Death and Sin.

Which leads me in closing to coming full circle and referencing Jeremiah 18 again, which reads

Jer 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.

Christ in the Flesh was marred beyond all recognition, but God made Him again another vessel in the Resurrection. We too may find ourselves in places where we are seen or felt to be marred beyond all recognition but that is exactly when God Himself will put on back on the Potters Wheel to make us into another vessel, one that is greater, one that is better and one that is good in the eyes of the Potter.

God has shown and encouraged me to no longer look at my current circumstances as the end all be all that it may on the outside look and feel, but to recognize that Christ Himself was in a position that seemed to be the total ruin of His Life however it was in fact the prelude to the most impactful thing any Human has done in all Eternity. It is in the position of Worldly ruin that God interjects Himself into lives and turns them into powerful testimonies for His Glory. I know that this is the case in my situation, I don't know the details or how things are going to pan out exactly but I am now convinced that whatever it is, however it looks now in the end God is intervening and will bring out His Glory and the best interest for me in the midst of it all.

And I want to encourage you all to join me upon the Potters Wheel, to allow God to take the places in our lives that seem to be ruin, to let Him shape and mold us and them into that which He seems good to make them and take that which is marred beyond all recognition and turn it into vessels of His Glory and our benefit. I don't know what 2021 has in store but I am excited to see how God is going to shape me and you as well. Here is too a God that takes the wretched and unwanted, the weak and beggarly things and reshapes them into Saints of Righteousness speaking in Power and Spirit.

I love you all, have a great day and blessed day in the Lord!

If you need prayer or anything else please feel free to reach out to me and I will help you the best I can and if I can't help I know one man that can, this man named Jesus!

Disciples

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Existence

Isaiah 64:8 But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.