Don't Fill The Cracks



“that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ”

Philippians 1:10

“We are all broken people living in a broken world among other broken people” the quote read and it caught my attention right away because regardless of how proud we can be, the statement is true. The Bible makes clear, “there is none righteous, no not one” and “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Each of us was born into this world flawed. Its why Jesus came, God knew we needed a Savior and its why He sent His Only Begotten Son for us.

God doesn’t expect perfection from us. After all it was the psalmist who recognized in Psalm 103:14, “For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.” What God does require is sincerity. In the New Testament book of Philippians the apostle Paul exhorts the church to aim high, to live for excellence and to be sincere. The Greek word is “siniceria” and means, “without wax”. Carpenters in Jesus day were not just wood workers, carpenters also included stone mason’s who would use hammer and chisel to fashion both furniture and art. Potters would take clay and fashion them into pots. The most common technique used to harden the clay was to sun dry or sun bake them.

Often times in the drying process the pots would crack. Conscientious artisans would never try to sell a ‘cracked pot’ but a less scrupulous potter would seek to hide the blemish by filling the crack with wax. It wouldn’t be until the purchaser got the pot home and it was exposed to the hot middle eastern sun that the wax would melt and the crack be exposed.

The apostle Paul is exhorting us to always do what we do with excellence and without wax. That doesn’t just mean to work hard and seek to put forth our best work. The apostle was also speaking of our lives. The reminder to day is don’t seek to be something we are not. When Paul exhorts the church to be ‘without wax’ he is calling the church to a life of holiness not hypocrisy. A hypocrite is someone who wears a mask, who pretends to be one thing when in reality they are another.

God knows we are all ‘cracked pots’ so we don’t need to try to fill the cracks of our lives so that people will accept us. God wants to use the cracks in our lives to reveal the light of His love within us. We weren’t created by God to be a water pot. Jesus is the light of the world and He came to illuminate the darkness in us and to shine His life in us and through us for others to see so they too could discover God.  

Paul’s hope for the church then remains the same for today. May the cracks in all our lives be evident to all who look upon us. We are not perfect, Jesus is so we have nothing to hide. May people look upon our lives and see not only the cracks in our lives, but more important, may they see the light of Jesus living in us that shines through our brokenness and makes us a thing of beauty. After all, it was the brokenness that revealed our need for Jesus in the first place. Remember, “people may appreciate your accomplishments but they relate to your failures.” It’s our brokenness that makes us human and its our sincerity that makes us relatable to other people. No one likes a phony, so be who you are. Let Jesus shine through your brokenness and avoid the temptation to fill the cracks with wax to appeal to others. Remember, the cracks don’t just let the light out, the cracks in our lives is what made it possible for the Son to shine in! Don’t fill the cracks!


“But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are

1 Corinthians 1:27–28


I LOVE YOU!

Michael Osthimer

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