INTIMACY WITH GOD IN BROKENNESS
Our Almighty God does, in fact, care when bad things happen to us. He does, in fact, still love us. He sees and feel our pain and suffering. He has not forgotten us and He knows more about suffering than we could ever hope to imagine! God uses brokenness to build our intimacy with Him. If we want to experience real intimacy with God we must experience brokenness.
?The 3R’s of Brokenness (Reality, Reason , Remedy)
1. The Reality of Brokenness
Psalm 31:12 says, “I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.” When a person is broken, he is almost useless, unless he gets repaired. We can reject the discipline, complain about our pain, become bitter and arrogantly justify ourselves before God and others. We can stubbornly refuse to bend, to bow or to be broken. The most common response is to become downcast, depressed, feeling worthless and washed-up, and even quit. We take out our bitterness over what is happening to us on to those around us. We develop a short fuse, we say things that we don’t really mean, and we lose control of our emotions very easily. Some of us blame God for what has happened and either drop out of church or quit serving like we used to and become discouraged, disillusioned, and even depressed.
2. The Reason for Brokenness
Sometimes God sees that our life is a mess and He breaks us so that He can remake us. If we aren’t broken, we cannot be fixed. God wants us broken, so He can put us back together again to mold us and shape us into the image and likeness of Christ. “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,” 2 Corinthians 4:17
3. The Remedy for Brokenness
David tells us the remedy for brokenness in Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifice God wants is a broken spirit. God, you will not reject a heart that is broken and sorry for sin.” David recognized that God didn’t want the ritual of sacrifice. God wanted his crushed heart, his broken spirit, and the very center of David’s being. God wanted a repentant heart.
Humility is the remedy for brokenness that is an essential prerequisite for real intimacy with God. Take the life of Moses. God took Moses through a process of disappointment and disillusionment that resulted in brokenness. Because Moses was broken, God could invest him with spiritual authority and commission him to do an impossible task. Because Moses was broken, he experienced intimacy and communion with God. He learned God’s will for his life and for the people of God.
The apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:7, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.” We are the clay jars. Sometimes we want to decorate and beautify the clay pots, thinking we can attract people and change people because we are so attractive. But God has another idea. The treasure is Jesus, not the pot. And the attraction is the treasure of the life of Jesus, not the clay pot. So God has to crack the pot in order for the treasure to be revealed.
Think about it, our Lord was broken in a different way, but through His brokenness, the greatest blessing of them all �” salvation, was made available for mankind.
?UNANSWERED PRAYER
This simply means our prayers are not yet answered or they are answered in a way we don’t recognize or can’t understand. When God is silent, we are forced to decide whether we will still trust Him alone without the benefit of an answered prayer to lean upon. When we pray, we tend to focus exclusively on the answers; God wants us to focus on Him. The truth is, our faith grows when we are at the end of ourselves and need to lean totally on Him. Unanswered prayer forces us to trust in God alone. His grace is made perfect in our weakness.
Proverbs 3:5
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
Spend Time with God
Without a deep connection to Him, the disciples’ ability to live and lead well would crumble under the pressures they would soon face as leaders of His movement. The same is true for the Christian today. We have been saved that we might have a meaningful love affair with Christ; everything else is subordinate and subsequent to that glorious truth. We sometimes get so caught up in doing good things for God that we don’t have time to spend with God. The danger is that in our zeal and passion for life and even serving in ministry, we can easily lose the most important priority of simply knowing Christ intimately. Everything we do for Christ must flow from intimacy. “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5 The primary call on the Christian is to be with Christ in an intimate love relationship. Our Father will hold us up until the finish line. Let’s hold on to Him today. Jesus invites us to come to Him and find rest. He wants to carry your burdens. He wants us to have an intimate relationship with Him. Let’s commit to surrender our life to God, submit in love to Him, and spend time with Him.
?Submit in Love to God
Our obedience must be a response of love to God not an adherence to a set of rules or a fear of punishment or a checklist of accomplishments. The way to insure that our obedience is out of love is when we know God personally. None of us can claim intimacy with Christ if our lives are marked by disobedience rather than submission to Him. If we refuse to obey Christ, as Lord, we cannot claim to know Him as a friend. The Bible plainly declares that He is Lord of all therefore, He is entitled to demand our allegiance to His Lordship. “Jesus replied, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will obey My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and take up residence with him.” John 14:23
?Surrender our Lives to God
Sin entangles our lives so that we trip, fall and get disqualified. Habits, vices, anger, greed, lust, pride, laziness, discontentment or selfishness in our lives will eventually defeat us. God is the one who cleanses us if we are willing. He will lovingly embrace you as you are when you surrender your life to Him because He desires to be intimate with you. “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,” Hebrews 12:1
?EXPERIENCE INTIMACY WITH GOD
We were especially designed and created to have a relationship with God. Unfortunately, when sin entered the human race, it rendered everyone spiritually dead and disconnected from God. Our spirits were no longer in close communion with the Lord. However, Jesus came to pay the penalty for sins with His death, and now all who trust Him as their Savior are spiritually reborn. Their connection with God has been restored and reopened through Christ. Yet God doesn’t want our relationship with Him to end at salvation; that’s where it begins.
We were created to experience intimacy with God. The benefits of being intimate with Him is that in the midst of life’s storms, you will have stability or a solid relationship with God as your anchor. You have security or assurance that He is always with you, ready to help you in any situation or circumstance. Intimacy gives you serenity, quietness and peace in your spirit, no matter what happens. Lastly, God will give you sensitivity and greater spiritual understanding and increased awareness to the needs of others.
?LET NO MANS HEART FAIL-INTIMACY EQUALS TRUST
Trusting in God is the ultimate proof of our intimacy with God. Why? Because when we trust in God, we let go of every other thing on which we hinge our confidence on and just completely depend on Him. God has given us so many promises that we can hold on to when we are in periods of darkness. However, we can only know the promises of God if we immerse ourselves in His Word and listen to Him. One person’s act of faith and courage led to the defeat of a formidable opponent, resulting to God’s glory. Finally, we must remember that the believer who trusts in God lets God’s glory shine in all his accomplishments.
?INTIMACY WITH GOD THROUGH WAITING
God Knows Best
God knows what we need, and in His time, He will bring it to pass. Matthew 6:8, “For your Father knows what things you have need of, before you ask Him.”
God’s Timing is Perfect
We must realize that God is preparing us for something great in the midst of waiting. Following God oftentimes involves suffering. When you walk with God it is not going to be a bed of roses. But God is faithful. Everything is perfect in His time.
If you rush it, you ruin it
God’s plans are not microwavable. Understand that God is weaving a tapestry of your life right now. Ephesians says, “He will work out everything in accordance with His will.” God is carefully, deliberately, skillfully putting your future together so you will be just the right person, at just the right place, at just the right time. Make it your goal not to find your fingerprints in your future but have only one set of prints - God’s.
?Jesus, friend of sinners!
Jesus, friend of sinners, we have strayed so far away. We cut down people in Your name but the sword was never ours to swing. The truth’s become so hard to see. The world is on their way to You but they’re tripping over me, always looking around but never looking up, I’m so double minded, a plank eyed saint with dirty hands and a heart divided. Jesus open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers. Let our hearts be led by mercy. Help us reach with open hearts and open doors. Jesus break our hearts for what breaks Yours. Jesus, friend of sinners, the one who’s writing in the sand made the righteous turn away and the stones fall from their hands. Help us to remember we are all the least of these. Let the memory of Your mercy bring Your people to their knees. Nobody knows what we’re for only what we’re against when we judge the wounded. What if we put down our signs crossed over the lines and loved like You did. You love every lost cause; You reach for the outcast. For the leper and the lame; they’re the reason that You came. Lord I was that lost cause and I was the outcast but You died for sinners just like me, a grateful leper at Your feet ‘cause You are good and Your love endures forever!
?John 3:16 God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
April 27
God - The greatest Lover
so loved - The greatest degree
the world - The greatest company
that He gave - The greatest act
His only begotten Son - The greatest gift
that whoever believes - The greatest simplicity
in Him - The greatest person
should not perish - The greatest promise
but - The greatest difference
have - The greatest certainty
everlasting life - The greatest possession.
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