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The sacrifices of God
are a broken spirit,
and a broken and contrite heart.
(Psalm 51:17)
Below is an excerpt I shared at my church on January 26 about the beauty of brokenness. Brokenness is a negative term to the world. However, brokenness is God's loving process of stripping us of our pride and self-sufficiency (the flesh) so that the beauty of Christ radiates from our true identity in Christ.
NEVER ALONE
Always remember that we were united to Christ through His cross and resurrection, and that He promises to never ever leave us nor to forsake us. This is true even when we, as Christians, are going through brokenness in the hands of God our Father. We remain united to Christ Jesus always.
RICH FULFILLMENT
I recently was ministered to by Psalms 66:10-11, and have ministered these verses to others this week.
For You, O God, have tested us.
You have refined us as silver is refined.
You laid affliction on our backs.
We went through fire and through water.
but You brought us out to rich fulfillment!
How can God "bring us out to rich fulfillment? The verse doesn't say God calls us to come out nor that God will lead us out. God Himself brings us out! For Him to do that, He has to be in there with us during our brokenness! In His perfect time after His perfect work of brokenness is complete, He brings us out!
Brokenness occurs in the arms of God. And our "rich fulfillment" is Christ Himself as Christ in all of His glory is revealed in us through brokenness! This is what we were re-born to do.
REFINING PROCESS
Impurities (dross) float to the surface when silver is tested by fire. The silversmith scraping off the dross is a picture of our Father stripping away our impure fleshly efforts.
The silversmith continues this dross removal process until He can see his face reflected on the surface of the silver. May we entrust our lives to God in all of His love through any form of brokenness He knows is best for us for one reason: for us to reflect and radiate Christ in us as our Father gazes upon us with total acceptance!
And note that there is nothing wrong with the silver itself; the impurities are not an integral part of the silver. This is why the dross can be stripped away. So it is with us. We are the righteousness of Christ in our hearts, in our true identity!
CLOSING
However, brokenness alone cannot set us free. Only truth can set us free...truth revealed during brokenness.
Jesus promises that He will make known His truths to His disciples (you and me) and those truths will set us free (John 8:32). A key truth is that we are always united with Christ -- He is the very source of our lives. It is a subtle lie that we are really not united with Christ and that we are to try our best with His help.
Jesus does not call us to believe in truths only as principles. He calls us to believe in Him! We may not fully understand eternal truths, but we can trust what Jesus says is truth. And He says He is "this treasure in our earthen vessels" and that we are broken "so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal bodies" (2 Corinthians 4:7-11). God bless you this week,
ps, Adrian Rogers wrote: "The world throws broken things away. God only uses broken things!" Oswald Chambers wrote that a Christian is "one who becomes broken bread and poured out wine in the hands of Jesus Christ for the sake of others."
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