Thought of the day….

Earlier this week, my devotional/discussion thgouth included the mission statement of my church.  “where broken people find healing in Christ, while helping others heal”

It had more hits than any other devotional blog I have written, and some pretty nice comments came to me. (By the way – feel free to comment and discuss what I right about here).  It made me think about the need to discuss what it means to be broken, and what it means to be healed, and how this happens when we find ourselves gathered with others in God’s presence….

The first step is a challenge in our society is difficult – it is not only admitting we are broken people, but mourning and being mortified that we are.  Isaiah demonstrated this sorrow and pain this way…
^6:5 Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.”
Isaiah 6:5 (NLT)

Have you ever, when someone asks you “How is it going”, really wanted to be honest.  To let them know that your heartbroken, or anxious about finances, or challenged, and cannot find any reason for hope?  That you are struggling with depression, or worried about what you might hear at that next doctor’s visit?  That you don’t know how to deal with the issues your kids misbehavior, but it scares you none the less?  But of course you say, “It’s going fine!”

Or what about us as a people, do we take great pride in our country, and pretend that everything is okay?  That families are being ripped apart, that children are growing up without any sense of ethics or morality?  Do we grieve about a country that is so calloused by sin that we don’t notice that most television shows include adultery as the norm?  Do we realize how many people live in great need?  Do we realize we are more concerned about having to pay for abortions, than the fact that 50 million lives have been tossed away?

The first step?  It’s not admitting we are broken people living in a broken world.

It is realizing it.

And realizing – that no matter how much we try…. we can’t fix what is wrong…

We can’t do miracles on that magnitude.  There is only One who can… the One who created us, and can re-create us.  We can trust Him, depend on Him, know that He will fix, heal, repair and make it all new.

For that is why he came…even as He explain in his first sermon – as He quotes Isaiah,

^4:18 “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; ¹⁹ To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.” ²⁰ Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. ²¹ And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Luke 4:18-21 (NKJV)

As your heart cries out, about your own brokenness, or the brokenness of this world, my you realize that for you as well… today this scripture has been fulfilled… as Christ heals your brokenness, and mine, and the worlds….