Bible Studies and Prayers: Less of me ... The potter and the clay

I get concerned that people (young people and women especially) think that "less of me and more of you, God" means something different than what God means, when we are taught to "die to ourselves". I think within the Christian church world Christians (Christ devoted disciples of Christ) use these verses and these prayers and exhortations to bring condemnation on ourselves. Our clever enemy has been using excerpts from the Words of God against us from our beginning in the garden and continues to do so.

Here is what I imagine "less of me more of God" looks like ...
http://youtu.be/V6xZi_uFl5I

The truths of God will be revealed from Genesis to Revelation the Word of God will always confirm and illuminates itself ... so I am for the most part going to give scriptures to why I thing that this is what it means for us to decrease so that He can increase.

Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. (Isaiah 64:8 NIV)

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. (Jeremiah 18:1-6 NIV)

You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “You did not make me”? Can the pot say to the potter, “You know nothing”? (Isaiah 29:16 NIV)

You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “You did not make me”? Can the pot say to the potter, “You know nothing”? (Isaiah 29:16 NIV)

But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? (Romans 9:20-24 NIV)

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. (2 Corinthians 4:6-17 NIV)

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All these things remove, put to death, our fallen parts of us and shape these jars of clay that carry the glory of God, so that they reveal the light, truth, hope and glory of God. We don't disappear we are shaped by the MASTER to show His glory, to tell and reveal the hope that has been veiled. God wastes nothing, crushed but not destroyed, even this is in His Sovereign Hands so that we are renewed.

Less is more... But not because you are ugly and worthless but because you are uniquely and purposefully destined to reveal an eternal glory and beauty of God. You are His Masterpiece.
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For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10 NIV)

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:13-16 NIV)

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. (1 Corinthians 12:12-27 NIV)

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Now let's read Ephesians 2:10 again in its context and keeping in mind what the whole of scripture says on this matter... ... Listen to the "less of me more of You", listen to the potter forming and trimming each of us for His usefulness and beauty, listen to His purposeful destiny for you, for everyone who will, ask for receive this gift of Grace and Eternal life, listen to your being formed, as you follow and obey, and even when life is horribly difficult, listen to the beauty you are becoming ... This clay vessel created and destined, called and chosen, to be a Masterpiece. Listen and understand and do not despise the workmanship of God.
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All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:3-10 NIV)

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So when you pray, say or sing "less of me and more of You God" remember this means that God is making room in you, to be a carrier of His glory (His light, truth, and the hope and unfailing good news), He is using these things to trim you, to reflect and reveal His goodness, love and power. Sometimes He will allow us to be crushed in order to be renewed and remade (see Jeremiah 18), but you ARE HIS MASTERPIECE don't ever be ashamed to be the workmanship, you are beautiful and being made more so, as God transforms you from glory to glory.
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And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV)