"Cast down, but not destroyed," July 15th, 2008

Paul's words are encouraging to me, especially those where they touch on the subject of faith, and my daily walk with God. I want to encourage you to read carefully, and prayerfully ponder, the 7th through the 11th verse of his second epistle to the Corinthians, the 4th chapter. This passage came quickly to my mind when I read King David's 51st Psalm, which I have come to call the prayer psalm of repentance. After David poured out his heart and soul to God, expressing genuine sorrow for his sin with Bathsheba, the wife of Urriah, one of his soldiers, he arrived at a very comforting conclusion: that God will honor and accept anyone who comes to Him with a broken spirit.

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken
and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise."
Verse 17

Brokenness is one of the most important features of the Christ centered life. Yet, it is often the most overlooked. And I have to admit, with much regret, that I have only recently discovered it has been missing for many years in my walk of faith. In fact, the Lord has shown me over the past eight months that I will never grow in my faith unless I am willing to allow Him to target and destroy those things in my life which hinder my faith walk. No, He is not out to destroy me, His child. And He does not intend to do you harm, either, if you are one of His. But He does intend to go after and do away with anything which we hold on to that will hinder His finished work in our lives.

This is something which is not mentioned, taught, or preached very much these days. Our idea of what it means to be a Christian is that we must always be about doing something. Starting programs, holding committee meetings, and making sure we are in the Lord's house almost every Sunday. But as I heard one fellow preacher put it, "Christianity is not doing. It is being. It is allowing our Lord to have complete unconditional control of every part of our lives. All that we value, whether it be possessions, even family, loved ones, and close friends. He has rights to all these and more, and when any of these are more important to us than our love and devotion to Christ, He will need to remove them. He wants to transform us into a finished work of grace so that what finally shows through us is His image.

The hour is late, but I intend to return to this theme soon in more detail.