Tag: sin

Discipleship for the Brokenhearted

Broken heart
Broken heart

“Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything.

That’s how the light gets in.”

 –Leonard Cohen, Anthem

“A crack in everything.” As a broken person I appreciate hearing the wisdom of this particular poet. I am intensely aware of being very different then others. I worked my way through college frying donuts and it was a challenge. After about six months my boss was telling everyone that, “Bryan is one of the most eccentric people I have ever met.”

I was not trying to be odd, or eccentric. I was taking “Greek” at the time and knew that eccentric was a contraction (of ek, meaning “off, or the one side,” and “centros,” meaning, “center”). He was basically saying that I was “off centered”. That really troubled me because I always felt like I was a very well-balanced person and fit in.

The above poem tells us certain things, it holds a simple truth. First, there are bells that can’t be used, they don’t work anymore. Second, we need to “get real” and to understand that “a perfect offering” is beyond our capability.

Maybe 20 years ago idealism would’ve carried the day for us. But, as we get older, we have figured out a thing or two, but by the time you turn 50, you start carrying a total other awareness of things. By then we see the cracks in everything, nothing has gone by untouched, or unscathed.

But the poet states a paradoxical truth, “that’s how the light gets in.” To learn this is to turbocharge your recovery. It takes your recognition of the reality of being a broken person. It also summons up a discernment of how we must grow spiritually.

I find that the broken, weak, burned-out people are closer to the Kingdom then the strong, suave and gifted. This is an incredible truth, we must see our brokenness is in all the right places. You see, that is how the light gets in.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
    he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.”

Psalm 34:18

ybic, Bryan

 

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The Clinic is Open

In the late part of the 1800s, a London Times journalist asked ten of the brightest men in England this question, “What is wrong with the World?”  One of these men responded,

“Dear Sirs,  I am.

Signed, G.K. Chesterton.”

Chesterton had been incredibly convinced of his own depravity.  He knew the evil that waited for him, lusting for him in the next room–or the very next set of circumstances.  G.K. had no illusions about the sin, a ravenous sin that could seize him at the drop of a hat–springing up, and devouring him.  In the moral and spiritual landscape, he wasn’t the predator, no!  He was the prey.

In my own walk of following Jesus, I must deal with certain issues.  I want to stress this–I have a mental illness but, it is not a spiritual illness.  But  that is not completely true either.  We all are spiritually ill, everyone of us, made sick by sin–and Satan is volunteering to be our doctor!

Redcross On a different level, the kingdom of darkness is working to keep me spiritually sick.  The Prince (or chief physician) of that evil has intentions to malnourish and to erode my spiritual health.  His form of smallpox, and his version of the measles corrupt and sicken me.

I guess I’m in a quandary.  Who should treat me?  I find myself trying to see both.  I have periods when I favor one treatment plan–and then I abruptly make an appointment  to see the competing healthcare provider.  I vacillate and it carries me right in the dynamic tension of Romans chapter 7:5, 14-15.

5 “When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. 15 I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.”

I’m at the place; and perhaps, the age, to work out some kinks in my heart–and my thinking.  And I scare myself.  There is such a dynamic working over me, that compels me to seek Jesus for his help.  My soul is sickened– a wrong diet of choices, habits, attitudes– all in an “overheated culture that is pounding and cajoling and maneuvering, like some “used car salesman” all on a spiritual level.

“True” holiness, not the religious kind, is our daily destiny. Mixed with grace, it becomes something that pleases our Father.

Dear ones, please hold on to your faith and love in our Lord Jesus.  We must fear God enough to do this.  We must hate sin even more.

“I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, self.”

–Martin Luther

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Heart Disease

Hearts 168457_154905807894473_110794108972310_320156_2061498_n“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,
and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?”

Jeremiah 17:9, NLT

We are the wounded. What exactly has caused it isn’t always known.  A death, divorce, depression and disability are great triggers.  Some of us are chronically ill, others are mentally ill.  We struggle to hold a job, and to go to church. There are some who are reading this who are controlled by addictions.  And a few of us consider suicide on pretty much a regular basis.

We’ve been hospitalized and stigmatized, and sometimes even institutionalized. And at times we endure massive attacks of fear and anxiety.  We are not easily understood, and we hear the whispers.  Our paranoia can often saturate what what we are thinking, (I think its more like a “marinade.”  Our brains just soak it up.)  Most of us are ‘walking wounded.’ We limp physically, and figuratively with equal pain.

“For thus says the LORD: Your hurt is incurable,
    and your wound is grievous.”

Jeremiah 30:12, ESV

If we are honest (and God insists on a rigorous honesty) we realize that we are a mess!  The prophet Jeremiah had a tremendous understanding of the human condition, and was never beguiled by the lie of pride, arrogance and selfishness.  He declares that we are diseased down to the core, like a rotten apple.

At times we continue in our favorite style of darkness.  And havoc sporadically rips through us and we become “disaster areas.”  How very sad, and profoundly tragic.

But you must understand this powerful fact.  Jesus Christ has been sent by the Father to save and cleanse all who come to Him.

“At that time a fountain will be open for David’s descendants and for the people of Jerusalem to cleanse them of their sin and uncleanness.”

Zechariah 13:1, NCV

“Children, it’s time for a bath,” and what God has done provides us the only way to “get better.” Some of us have carried staggering burdens for decades.  But I must be truthful. Our afflictions may continue to disturb us.  If you are bipolar or depressed, it just could be you’ll remain so.  But I know first-hand that our Father will give us an extra ration of grace.

In the Old Testament, family patriarchs could give an additional portion to a son he especially loved.  All were blessed, but some more so. That peculiar proclivity of our Father is why some of us with deep wounds can follow closer than others who are healthy.

“For I am the LORD, your healer.” Ex. 15:26

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“The treatment a wound gets decides whether time will bring healing or bondage.”

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ybic, Bryan

kyrie elesion. (Lord, have mercy on each reader)

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Zero Condemnation

Condemnation-Condemnation can go viral among believers.  Not only does it infect us, but we become ‘carriers’ that often can sicken others spiritually.  Our attitudes and thinking can become quite disturbed, and we then communicate that to our family and friends.

To be perfectly honest, condemnation is not easily defined.  But it seems to be  the feeling that we are being judged for our sin.  It carries a judicial sense that a verdict has been spoken over our lives–and we are guilty as charged.  Condemnation carries a sense of finality or doom.  It has an idea of irreversible punishment. (Conviction, on the other hand is hopeful and comes with promise.)

People who are trying to live with condemnation feel as if they are waiting for an executioner to appear.  There lives are filled with dread and foreboding. But it all seems right. Life unfolds for them in dark paranoia.  On the other hand conviction will lead us to compassion and mercy, but condemnation is a lie and falsehood.  There is a profound sense of guilt which a believer is able to push back–but only so far.  It is heartbreaking to see, especially when you understand the scope of the battle that is taking place.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Romans 8:1

The human race is under the righteous judgement of God for our sin.  We cannot pretend that this isn’t real.  Just a cursory overview of history supports this fact, with our wars and famines.  In our natural state, we excel at mistreatment of others.  There is a viciousness and an evil that is embedded in our hearts.

But Jesus is our Savior, He came in the pattern of a sacrificial lamb.  He took on all of your sin, and evil.  He absorbed it, and took your guilty verdict.  He was your sacrifice.  What Jesus did was complete and total.  He just didn’t take a percentage of your sin, He took everything from you–no matter how dark and evil.  He siphoned it all away. and He carried all your weight. He took all the punishment.

Condemnation comes when we find a reason not to believe this.

Condemnation-flattenedThere is almost always doubt involved, and it seems too good to be true, after all.  There is also a entrenched concept of justice, right and wrong.  Believers with a real feeling for ‘the scales of justice’ find themselves without any hope. They lose the concept of mercy and grace for their sins.

“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.”

Revelation 12:10

There is an evil presence in this world.  It accuses us, and confuses us.  His name is Satan– and he is all together evil.  He makes a concerted effort to try to destroy us.  He floods us with wickedness and darkness.  If you will not stand against him, he will bring you down. However, you must understand this, he has been defeated.  But I must reinforce this, without Christ, there can be no immunity from the darkness of condemnation.

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