kingdom of God – Broken Believers

Release the Perfume!

“And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment.”

Luke 7:37, ESV

“Your love delights me, my treasure, my bride. Your love is better than wine, your perfume more fragrant than spices.”

Song of Solomon 4:10

“What about you? What precious perfume is locked inside your heart that could be lavished on our Lord? The little treasures you and I struggle to hold on to may hold back opportunities to worship Him with extravagant praise, releasing ministry and service to Him that will bless all those around us.”

-Angela Munizzi

We should know that our simple words really do have a way of blessing Jesus. Our words spoken will be translated into actions. Our actions become an obedient faith. An obedient faith is the character that moves the hand of God.

We are truly significant. You have no idea the role you play in His kingdom. What you really do does matter in His realm. The worship we sincerely offer is also duly noted. Furthermore the radiance seen on our faces is the proof we’ve been with Him.

We touch Jesus, somehow, and in some way we’ve blessed Him. I believe that this must encourage Him, and that He receives our offering. He then responds and blesses those who are desperately crying out. God is not capricious, nor is He temperamental. One of the hardest things to grasp it seems, is believing that our worship really does matter to Him.

Worship needs to become extravagantly simple again. Poured out, ‘good-to-the-last-drop’ kind of worship. It gives and pours out until there is simply no more. A praise that is on the lookout for the needs of others. This level of worship becomes intercessory. It is supercharged praise that reaches a level of ‘standing-in -the -gap’ for others. Prayer at this level breaks chains and heals the sick.

Intercessory worship will cover the helpless, and turn God’s intervention to the needs of the lost.

When the Holy Spirit tunes us, we become precise instruments of grace and love; that enables us to touch the hearts of many billions who are lost, who have no hope at all. We are never more like Jesus than when we’re in intercession for the needs of people.

I’m one of many believers who really struggles with clinical depression. The realization that I might be inserted into a challenging situation while I’m severely struggling is an awful possibility. It truly is a frightening prospect for me. I don’t want my issues to ever thwart the work of the Holy Spirit.

But I have learned much of this while laying down at His feet. I attempted to pour out every bit of perfumed nard, and I sincerely desired to hold nothing back; to pour out the entire bottle.

This desperation has a way somehow of making me adequate.

It’s showing me how to become competent. It has nothing to do with me, but everything to do with Jesus Christ, and His undisputed authority in the realm of this world.

His desire is to create a flock from the willing, and to bring all that glory home, to His Father.

The Fragrant Perfume (samuelanand.wordpress.com)
If I could design my own perfume … (juststefanie81.wordpress.com)
break the jar (sendmenow.wordpress.com)
Saturday, April 28, 2012 @ Mark 13-14 (phyllisbenigas.wordpress.com)

Alterations (Bring it On!)

“So Naomi and Ruth went on until they came to the town of Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, all the people became very excited. The women of the town said, “Is this really Naomi?”

“Naomi answered the people, “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very sad.”

“When I left, I had all I wanted, but now, the Lord has brought me home with nothing. Why should you call me Naomi when the Lord has spoken against me and the Almighty has given me so much trouble?”

Ruth 1:19-21

Naomi has traveled from Moab to her hometown of Bethlehem. People were pretty excited and her arrival must’ve brought out the crowds. It’s great for her to be around happy people who were genuinely pleased to see her again.

But a new Naomi returns. She makes it clear that something has happened. She has been fundamentally changed by the Lord. She can no longer be called Naomi (“Pleasant”) but insists she is now “Mara”. Her reasoning is painfully clear, she grasps the reality of her condition. “I am now Mara (“Bitter”), that is my new name. It’s what I’ve become.”

“Call me by this new name, because the Almighty has acted “bitterly” against me. I am not the same person I was went I left here. I am different, when I left here I was prosperous, everything was going very well. But now, its different, and I come home with absolutely nothing. And it’s all because the LORD has hurt me deeply.”

I read Ruth the other day, and something intrigued me by her perception, and of her theology that recognized God’s handprints on her life. I believe she was a broken person, and therefore essentially changed. I believe she had a measure of peace in seeing the Lord was in control of her life. She was becoming aware. Ruth was now attuned to the deep purposes of God.

It wasn’t fate, karma, or destiny after all. It was God!

With my many, many issues, I find a comfort in this. God has touched me, and I am not the same person I was five years ago. I know hard things, even bitter things, about myself and the world around me. I went out healthy and strong and have returned weak and empty. Bipolar disorder will do that. Pain will do that. God’s dealings will do this. He loves us far too much to allow us to go unchanged.

God is not malicious, but He is very thorough. And all that He does is for our good.

There are distinct times when the Lord works to bring us to Christlikeness. That involves a refining and the smelting process. Crisis becomes the ‘new normal’. This is never “pleasant” and it’s almost always “bitter.” Naomi was finding this out first-hand, to the point of even changing her name.

“I have refined you, but not as silver is refined.
Rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering.”

Isaiah 48:10

I’d like to encourage you to recognize (and announce) your weakness and your brokenness to the Lord in prayer. See God’s hand in your bitterness. You’ll be surprised at the release that will come to you. It shouldn’t engender anger, but surprisingly it can bring you healing and salvation. It helps to understand. Consider the following:

There often two sides of living–the life we’ve lived and the life we’re becoming. Both are filled with grace and they’re as different as ‘night-and-day’
God is stealthily working good on our behalf, even when things are awful. He has full authority to do so.
He’s always (lovingly and passionately) trying us; probing to see if we draw closer to Him when we’re tested. He is patient when we fail our tests. Every test will be repeated until we overcome it
We can’t escape Jesus’ work in our lives. He is the Master Carpenter. He is building a cathedral!

“God rescues us by Breaking us, by shattering our strength and wiping out our resistance.”

–A. W. Tozer

Call me Bitter (ptl2010.com)
Naomi and Ruth (brakeman1.wordpress.com)
God’s Sovereignty in our Bitterness. (crossingthoughts.wordpress.com)
The Saints of God are Never Lucky (godsgracegodsglory.wordpress.com)

Bring Down Those Walls! [Victory]

“By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.”

Hebrews 11:30, NIV

Cemented into our walk as believers is the powerful presence of Jesus Christ. The scriptures, which are our supreme directive, show to us our spiritual imperative. That mandate is victory, and we begin freedom with ourselves. The Israelites have shown us a realistic understanding of overcoming by faith alone.

“So the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpets. And it happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat. Then the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.”

Joshua 6:20, NKJV

The stone walls of Jericho crumbled in when God’s covenant people believed the Word of the Lord for an astonishing victory. Our Lord intends we walk around our obstacles by faith, our confidence is in His power to defeat all that resists Him. We can’t do this by copying their formula, but by having God’s presence.

Instead, our spiritual weapons are energized with divine power to effectively dismantle the defenses behind which people hide.⁵We can demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God and break through every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God. We capture, like prisoners of war, every thought and insist that it bow in obedience to the Anointed One.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5, TPT

Spiritual power is always present when Jesus is near.

When we’re united with him, we’ll see every obstacle fall prostate at His feet. In Christ, by faith, we can expect to see some pretty awesome things! We follow our High Priest as we face our own walls. We are no longer defenseless.

With you as my strength I can crush an enemy horde, advancing through every stronghold that stands in front of me.

Psalm 18:29, TPT

For those of us who struggle with depression or other illness, we need a God of power who can work in our lives. There is a battle and victory will always contested. But for those of us who are downtrodden, we set our gaze on He who wants us free. Don’t give up. Follow the Lord Jesus to freedom.

Jericho Walls (homeschooladventurers.wordpress.com)
Not by Right or Might, but Faith (trinityspeaks.wordpress.com)

Mechanisms of the Spirit

Especially for the Leaders and Pastors who Guide the Ministry of the Church:

“Unless the Lord builds a house,
the work of the builders is wasted.
Unless the Lord protects a city,
guarding it with sentries will do no good.”

Psalm 127:1

“O my son, give me your heart.
May your eyes take delight in following my ways.”

Proverbs 23:27

———————-

“The highest expression of the will of God in this age is the church which He purchased with His own blood. To be scripturally valid any religious activity must be part of the church. Let it be clearly stated that there can be no service acceptable to God in this age that does not center in and spring out of the church. Bible schools, tract societies, Christian business men’s committees, seminaries and the many independent groups working at one or another phase of religion need to check themselves reverently and courageously, for they have no true spiritual significance outside of or apart from the church.”

–A.W. Tozer

As believers we sometimes lose the sight of what is going on around us. We get attached to a structure or a mechanism and view it as why we are here. Ministries, churches, retreats, conventions, even websites (!): every “structure” and every effort of man— however good and noble is not the Church of Jesus Christ.

The Church is a fluid and dynamic thing. It supersedes anything we can do or plan. Our efforts are always secondary, and even at there best are minuscule. We are gifted so that we might serve others, that is true. But wisdom always realizes the “big picture” even while serving in a “para-church” context.

The Church is the bride of Christ himself. It really is the only authorized work of God in the world today. It is what the Spirit is doing in our midst. Our personal efforts (like this website) are not really the full expression of truth in this world. That privilege belongs to the body.

I’m not trying to demean your ministry or work for the Lord. I won’t advocate that we shut-down our separate efforts. But I do suggest we restore our focus on the Church of Jesus above anything we can do. Paul cared deeply for the churches; he labored, toiled, travelled, was persecuted and despised all for the Church. Paul saw Jesus as its head, and he saw it as “the bride of Christ.” No sacrifice was too high or hard for the Bride.

“Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.”

2 Corinthians 11:28, NASB

We are to be servants of the Church first. We dare not be side-tracked or led in a subtly different direction. Perhaps a good way to think of this subject is that there are:

mechanisms, and
organisms.

Sometimes we’re somewhat mechanical and something living. I suggest that we restore to the living Church the honor and glory it deserves. Our individual ministries can be good— fruit may even be seen. But we dare not minimize the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. She is his bride. She will rule and reign with him forever and ever.

“And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.”

Revelation 21:2

It will not be brokenbelievers.com that “descends” from heaven, but the Church. As important as I think I am, this website will not be in that place. This privilege belongs to Christ’s own bride– the Church. Perhaps it is this fact that we who are in ministry should consider from time-to-time: Let the church be the Church.

t bry-signat (1)

“Go and Learn” [Discipleship]

“When Jesus heard this, he said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.” ¹³Then he added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’ For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

Matthew 9:12-13, NLT

These two verses are a challenge. They fit together like old watch mechanism, small gears and wheels in precise motion, keeping time in a treasured grace. My father had an old one, used once by a train conductor. It was made of gold, and had been used for almost 100 years.

The complexity of these verses were never meant to confuse the disciples. But for them it is simple, “to go and learn.” Certainly, there are times we will be ‘schooled’ in what we learn. And really the only way to approach this is in humility. Trying to extract the truth will take patience and a broken heart.

Jesus states the truth of being a doctor, and there is a singular work that a doctor does. It is serving all who come to him with sickness or injury. Jesus clarifies a truth that has to be in place.

“Go and learn what the Scriptures mean when they say, `Instead of offering sacrifices to me, I want you to be merciful to others.’ I didn’t come to invite good people to be my followers. I came to invite sinners.” v.13, CEV

“Go and learn!” This implies that there are lessons for us, classes that we need to take in order to grow-up and touch sick and desperate people. Funny, but it’s all about mercy, and nothing to do with “sacrifices.” Mercy is what matters. “I want you to be merciful to others.”

I admit that I’d rather be merciful, than to be right. (It’s good to be both.) But mercy– and gentleness should be our driving impulse. These attitudes assist us to move us forward. “Go and learn.”

The last verse reveals the thinking that Jesus has. He has come to help those of us in trouble. The good people don’t understand, after all, isn’t their ‘sparkly goodness’ enough? As his disciples, we share our faith to all; but maybe we should consider the weak, poor and the sick already prepared for the words of Jesus? “Go and learn.”

“Discipleship is a lifelong process and journey rooted in a relationship with Jesus, whereby we become more like Christ.”

Greg Atkinson

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A Hospital for Sinners (focusedandfree.com)
Our commission to spread God’s word, everywhere. (awaked21.wordpress.com)
Your Father is Merciful – trinity 4 sermon – presentation of augsburg confession (deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com)
“For I Desire Mercy, and not Sacrifice” (johnstob.wordpress.com)

The Hiding Place– Corrie ten Boom Learns to Forgive

“Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”

Ephesians 4:32, NLT

Great hearts are often shuttled through experiences with intense forgiving. The Father tutors us through out our earthly lives, with many visits to this classroom. It is here we get our learning. It will happen several times in our walk, and we carry different nuances, or slants. Each time we are required to forgive authentically. The course is set for us. We can’t choose to skip these lessons without injuring ourselves, and harming others.

We are learning to love– it is our calling and destiny. There are no “accidents” or misaligned ‘drop-outs’ here. We step into our classroom, and the Teacher and Comforter begins His instruction. Many things will strike you as diabolical. Deep inside us we have simply no idea of how “this” will turn out for good. And you’d be right. But the power of God steps in, and “all is well”.

Corrie ten Boom-- Writer, speaker, Christian — Corrie ten Boom– Writer, speaker, Christian

Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch Christian. After her release from a Nazi concentration camp, she began traveling the world and speaking to any who would have her. The needs of postwar Europe were desperate. She traveled as an evangelist telling people who Jesus is and spoke about His redemption. She gave many people hope.

Through her travels she came in contact with a few of the guards that had been a part of the Nazi regime and had to practice forgiveness that only Jesus can bring. The first encounter with one of her previous jailers proved to be most difficult.

Here is an excerpt from her book, “The Hiding Place”.

“It was a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,” he said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!” His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.

She then took his hand and the most incredible thing happened.

From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”

Corrie’s Wisdom for Us

There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.
Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.
It is not my ability, but my response to God’s ability, that counts.
When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.
Faith is like radar that sees through the fog-the reality of things at a distance that the human eye cannot see.
Trying to do the Lord’s work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.

Thoughts from Other Believers

Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me. Author Unknown

To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. C.S. Lewis

There is such a big difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. It takes two to reconcile, so it is not always possible to be reconciled. But it takes only one to forgive. So if people do you wrong, forgive them, whether or not they ask for forgiveness. You cannot cancel their sin. Only God can do that, and He will only do it if they repent. But what you can do is set aside your own anger, bitterness, and resentment towards them. Philip Graham Ryken

Forgiveness may be described as a decision to make four promises:

“I will not dwell on this incident.”
“I will not bring up this incident again and use it against you.”
“I will not talk to others about this incident.”
“I will not let this incident stand between us or hinder our personal relationship.” Ken Sande

For her efforts to hide Jews from arrest and deportation during the German occupation of the Netherlands, Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983) received recognition from the Yad Vashem Remembrance Authority as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” on December 12, 1967.

“The Hiding Place” and her many other books can be purchased at Amazon.com. It really must be read and there is a movie out with the same name.

cropped-christiangraffiti1-2

Corrie Ten Boom Suffered More than Flu (calvinistview.com)
Wisdom from Corrie ten Boom – Week 1 (jenniferajanes.com)
Corrie Ten Boom Quote Friday (walklikeenoch.com)
Corrie Ten Boom on the Love of Christ (allisonquientquotes.wordpress.com)

The Rigidity of Evil

I have a heart--but it is broken and crushed. — I have a heart–but it is broken and crushed.

Today I realized that I was sick and very tired of myself. It’s really not disgust, or even loathing. It’s more like a weariness, an exhaustion. I’ve never felt this way. In a strange way it intrigues me. Could this definite disenchantment mean something spiritual? Does it have value, or am I just feeling self-absorbed or conceited?

There is a real rigidity to evil. As I have seen it– sin hardens all who touch it, plain and simple. My growing immobility disturbs me, as I know I’m developing a “hardness of heart.” Atherosclerosis is a condition of a sick heart where arteries become blocked. It’s also known as “hardening of the heart, or arteries.” It is a patient killer, slowly and surely making hard deposits that block the flow of blood.

The Bible speaks about having a hard heart. It also uses the metaphor of fallow ground that must be plowed up. Jesus used the same image in His “Parable of the Sower” in Matthew 13.

“A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, 6 but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain.”

There are only four real options.

The first is seed that never arrives.
The second lands on hard stones.
The third possibility is landing on thorns and thistles.
Only the fourth flourishes.
The Battle of the Heart

The question I have is this, can the hard soil become soft, and can the good soil become overgrown with thistles? Is this a static, set experience? Or could it be far more fluid? I seem to move from one soil condition to another.

I have found that my own heart drifts. Manic Depression is a mental illness where emotions fluctuate constantly. They gallivant around, floating here and than there. I maybe depressed and suicidal in the morning, and then I can be euphoric in the evening. It’s having the identity of a “wandering star.”

I want my heart to soften. I want to sit with Jesus and hear His words. I need Him to share what He is thinking about. Any sin I entertain has a hardening effect in my spiritual heart. This really scares me. *

ybic, Bryan

Take care how you listen (yadahyarah.wordpress.com)
Parable of the Sower. (eunasp.wordpress.com)
The Parable of the Sower and the Seeds (steppingstonesdfc.wordpress.com)

Category: kingdom of God