Consider two more verses that you might not thought about as fitting together. What I am going to write may be hard to accept, but think about it in terms of the sovereignty of God.
The first verse reads, “Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. All the days ordained for me were recorded in your scroll before one of them came into existence” (Psalm 139:16 NET). As a person who has designed and built five houses I understand the selection of materials and how they will be used together to satisfy the design. Scripture seems to suggest that a body of spiritual members was designed before creation to be presented to Jesus Christ as his bride. From this verse it appears that God clearly saw and wrote in his book what each life lived would be like and what the end product of each would be like. God knew the exact makeup of every piece of human building material that might be used in forming the body of believers for Christ.
The second verse reads, “Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use” (Romans 9:21 ESV)? The clay represents all of humanity we considered in the above verse. God is the potter with the clay and potter’s wheel before him. As God plans the vessels, is he writing in his book the life of that vessel that will be lived out on earth? Is he choosing from the spiritually dead (the vessels of dishonor), the ones he will transform into vessels of honor through spiritual birth? As these vessels live out their lives it appears that God knows the end product of each by design, but as each life is lived it is free to live within certain God given parameters.
I know I deserved to be a vessel of dishonor because of sin and rebellion against God, but in his sovereign, for reasons I can’t comprehend, God chose to transform me into a vessel of honor. Knowing what he has done for me and the eternal consequences, I don’t know how to thank him enough.
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