Was inspired to share a short extract of one of the message from last week Holy week service together with the next chapter of brokenness by Nancy Leigh Demoss during our room devotion last wednesday...
Continuation...
3 expressions of humility: Sinner- Dr Matt Rawlins
Jeremiah 17:9, 10 NIV “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? "I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve."
All people become “defensive” when they become threaten, vulnerable or embarrass.
Let’s change the word “defensive” into control. Our heart condition is to be in control. Learning how to be vulnerable in our relationships, loving ourselves and neighbour. As God knows our heart, He is not ashamed of us. Are we able to talk about vulnerability? That human weakness of ours?
The problem in a church is not sin, but walking vulnerability with one other.
It’s about hearing each other heart, not just about trying to fix it.
Having said that, below is an extract of the next chapter from the book brokenness which follow up so nicely with His message.
JOURNEY into BROKENNESS (Chapter 6)- Nancy Leigh Demoss (Part 3)
“Being broken is both God’s work and ours. He brings His presence to bear, but we have to make the choice... All day long the choice will be before us in a thousand ways.”- Roy Hession
Brokenness requires both God’s initiative and our response.
i) The Word of God has the power to soften the hardened soil of our hearts and shatter our stubborn self-life. Psalm 29:4-5,”The voice of the LORD is powerful... The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars...”
ii) God uses circumstances to expose our need and bring us to the end of ourselves.
iii) God has given us the body of Christ. Proverbs 27:6 “Faithful are the wounds of a friend...”
1. GET A FRESH VISION OF GOD
The closer we get to God, the most clearly we see ourselves as we really are. When we step into the light of God’s holiness, our lives are brought into sharp relief.
To know God, to live in His presence, and to be occupied with a vision of His holiness is to know how foolish and frail we are apart from Him and to be broken from a preoccupation with ourselves.
Isaiah 6:5 “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.”
2. DON’T WAIT FOR GOD TO BREAK YOU- CHOOSE TO BE BROKEN
Don’t wait for God to break you. “Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God” (See 1 Peter 5:6)
“God be merciful to me a sinner”, “Have mercy on me, O God”
“We must learn to live with the roof off and walls down.”
3. ACKNOWLEDGE SPIRITUAL NEED- TO GOD AND TO OTHERS
If we want to live a lifestyle of humility and brokenness, we must learn to live with the roof off and the walls down.
Living with the walls down toward others can become a wonderful means of God’s grace in our lives.
4. DO WHATEVER YOU KNOW GOD WANTS YOU TO DO
Has God spirit been tugging at your heart?
If you want to have a revived heart, you must choose to run head-on into whatever it is that your pride is telling you not to do.
The battle inside will stop the moment you wave the white flag of surrender and say “Yes, Lord”. The longer you delay, the harder you resist, the more difficult it will be to obey God. Don’t hesitate a moment longer. You can’t begin to imagine the joy that awaits you on the other side of the cross, the power of His resurrection life that will be released through your death to self, and the wholeness that will emerge out of your brokenness.
"Oh Father, we confess our great need of Your grace- grace to let You search our hearts; grace to offer to You the sacrifice of a broken, contrite heartm grace to put to death our prude and self-will; grace to walk in the pathway of humilty, as our belived Savior humbled Himself for us; and grace to keep looking to Him as our only hope of eternal salvation. Through our brokenness, may Christ be seen, magnified, loved, and worshiped by others, till He returns to make all things new. Amen. "
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