P31 OBS Uninvited Week 4: Break up to MakeUp

After getting involved with spiritually alive and spirit filled churches I heard some pretty dramatic testimonies.

I heard about people who were going nowhere in life but met God and now they're unstoppable. They were at their lowest point, broken seemingly beyond repair, and they surrendered their lives to God and were delivered.

I heard a story where the woman admitted to committing every type of crime there is and facing numerous charges but was exonerated by the law....but first she was exonerated by God and now uses her pardon to go help other young women who may be tempted to go down the same road of destruction she found herself on.  She speaks to young women in detention centers and jails to give them HOPE that all is not lost.

Dealing with Broken People

Our society is broken.

The people in our society are broken.

People are suffering in silence but the evidence manifests itself in so many ways whether it's the pursuit of the superficial, the material, the endless anger and violence, or the broken relationships that are all around us.

People are broken.

They are broken but they don't have to stay that way.

Here's where I differ from most people: I believe we need to stop treating people as victims.  We should find out causes and WHY people have embarked on such paths but we don't need to camp out there.  We don't need to build our lives on the WHY of brokenness to think of more reasons why we can't ever move on and be healed.

We need to acknowledge people are broken and then help them find healing to come back together.

To the person who messed up royally and lost his or her family:  We can help them identify what made them behave in that manner and then working on development so that the behavior stops. Maybe they will not be able to repair the broken family but they will be able to gain a new family that they will be able to love and cherish the right way.

I believe the way we deal with broken people needs to change.  We don't need to promote victimhood because that leads to hopelessness and our God is full of hope.  We need to promote empowerment.  We need to teach people to declare and decree

1 John 4:4

But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.

Zechariah 4:6

Then he said to me, “This is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says theLord of Heaven’s Armies.

John 11:40

Didn't I tell you that you would see God's Glory if you believe?

Now I understand that some churches need victims and hopeless people because those folks will stay on the pews to keep coming and hearing the same old thing every week. They don't expect change, don't believe that change can happen, and have never had a God encounter to make them believe otherwise.

I am not here for that.

When it all Falls Down

This has been on my heart for a while and I want to share it.  

When we think about Epic Fails, a broken person is at the center of it.  When we hear about someone who has lost EVERYTHING and is now facing an uncertain future, a broken person is at the center of it.

A few months ago I heard about a situation like this and my heart was sad.  I was upset because I just thought "Jesus.  This person could have been a world changer and I mean they could have lit this world on fire for the right reasons but now look at what has happened."

But then I started thinking:  What if this wasn't the case at all?  What if The Lord has allowed it all to fall down so that HE could build it all back up the RIGHT way and on the RIGHT foundation.

Sometimes the only way to get our attention and to make our lives useful to Him is for God to completely break us apart and remake us. 

 It's to take all of the stinking thinking, the shame, the inferiority, the insecurity, the lack of love, the lack of self worth, and valuing the wrong things break them all down and remake us into a new creation.  

It's to give our lives truly to our creator and become a new creation.

A New Life

2 Corinthians 5:17

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

Isn't that a beautiful concept?  A new life!  All of the old is gone.  All the shame, the inferiority complexes, the insecurities, the users, the manipulators, the self loathing, and materialism is gone and in its place a new life!  

A Life without shame, being secure in who you are in Christ, no more users and manipulators but people who love you (most likely the people who love you even when you're broken and in your worst spot), and valuing what really matters.

Never Too Late

As long as you are breathing it is never too late to be made into what God had intended all along but instead of trying to glue yourself back together using that same faulty mindset that got you into trouble in the first place, let it go.  

Let it Go and allow the potter to remake you into something wonderful.  The process is often ugly and not very pleasant.  It's also not overnight.  I think about when I first started out about 7 years ago on this spiritual quest in earnest and it was ugly.  Lots of crying but I am glad I did not give up and I'm glad I did not go back to old habits and beliefs because I was too afraid to move forward. 

I was broken too.  Years of legalism, self loathing, and feeling like it was all so hopeless and for naught had taken its toll.  But I am glad to be remade into someone who understands grace,  knows that God can do exceedingly and abundantly more than we ask or think and is EMPOWERED by that is wonderful.

The above picture is true.  The breaking of you and all that you hold on to will be the remaking of you.  Wouldn't you rather be remade into the Lord's masterpiece as he calls us (Ephesians 2:10)  than making a mess as we do.

It can happen for you as well.  I pray that it does if you're reading this.

To God be the Glory