devotional by: Rick Heil

Added: 09-18-2007

Brokenness Leads To Power

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” 

 - Psalm 51:17        

 Sometimes we inflict such pain on each other. Most of the time we hurt the ones we cherish the most. Why? Many factors can cause problems in our relationships – expectations too high, so much fear of rejection, or just plain selfishness…. just to cover a few. I once heard that relationships are the most difficult thing about living but when done right, the most rewarding. Loving others as we love ourselves is a hard thing. Our human nature is always creeping in. Left to ourselves, we will never be able to love the way that our Creator loves.    

God loves perfectly; He gave the gift of ultimate sacrifice – His Son’s life for us. There’s nothing our Father in Heaven wants more than to love us, for us to love Him and then for His creation to love each other.  

We try to love each other in our own strength and it may even work… for a while. God doesn’t command us to ‘love each other as I have loved you’ so we would fail. He, by the power of the Holy Spirit, fills our hearts with the compassion we need to love other people the way He loves them. God is love and His love is infinitely perfect and He can fill our hearts with that perfect love, but first we have to be broken to receive that ability. We in this self-made society often resent brokenness. To the world, brokenness means weakness, equated to failure. But in God’s economy brokenness is one of the most valuable assets we can possess.  

Brokenness plus Jesus Christ in us equals power. God resists a prideful, arrogant heart but on the other hand He draws close to the humble and contrite heart. God wants to empower His people but we must first humbly submit ourselves to Him and His great plan for our lives.  

Dear Father in Heaven, we desire more than anything to please You, so we ask for you to give us a broken and contrite heart. Only then in our brokenness may we truly be the vessels of Your compassion that You’re calling us to be. Lord, we admit that we are weak and so we trust in Your mighty strength to live as Christ in this dark world. May we shine like stars for Your glory…. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.