Daily Devotional Day & Night

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Today's scriptures are about the power of a broken spirit. I looked up the word Broken on dictionary.com, trying to give you the literal meaning of the word, and it has 17 different meanings. This is why I initially choose to look it up. To sum it up in a few words, it's to be reduced to fragments, ruptured, incomplete, infringed or violated, interrupted, disrupted, disconnected, or weakened in strength and/or spirit. In life, all of these words are very relevant when it comes to being broken, and most of us have experienced this at one time or another. The good news is that as a child of God, whenever we're broken He will fix us. He'll fix any situation or circumstance, and help us rebuild better than before.

Sometimes God allows our spirit to be broken as part of His refinement process. Sometimes the only way we'll respond to necessary change is a little pain and heartache. In most situations, it takes us being feed up or angry with our current turbulent situation, before we'll do anything to change it. God knows our heart, as well as our strengths and weaknesses, so He understands the things that we can't let go. There are many situations and spirits that we have, that need to be broken, in order for us to move the way He wants us to move. I look at it in the terms of wild horses. Horses have played a major part in the growth of civilization. If it wasn't for them, man wouldn't have been able to travel long distances in shorter periods of time, or move heavy loads, etc. However a horse’s true nature is to run free, with no boundaries or rules. It first needs to be broken in order to be useful to its master, and be able to be led in the way it should go.

We're in the flesh, so our nature is to be influenced by culture, which could lead us to "run wild", ignoring the laws of Christ, and could ultimately lead to death. We were created for a purpose, and God will do whatever it takes keep us in His will, on the path of righteousness. He’ll break us, in order to rebuild us, and will do it as many times necessary to bring peace to our lives. I wrote about my Pastor's sermon on how God is the potter and we're the clay a few days ago. I love Jeremiah's story about the Potter and the Clay. God told him to go to the Potter's house to hear a word from Him, and when Jeremiah got there, he saw the Potter making something on his wheel. Jeremiah watched the Potter mess up the first sculpture, so he broke up the clay and started to make another vessel. When Jeremiah saw this the Lord said to him: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the LORD. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel!" (Jer. 18:6) When I heard my Pastor preach on this subject it changed my entire outlook. It made me more open to God, and appreciate the brokenness that has taken place in my life, because He was only breaking me down, to rebuild a more beautiful and structurally sound me. When I think about it in that way, it makes me want to rejoice!

The spirit of brokenness is never easy to endure, but the best thing about it is that God won't give us more that we can bear. Also, one of the best things about being a Christian is the fact that we have the Holy Spirit. God will give us everything we need to get through life, but when we're not watching and listening, we often miss His warnings, and that causes a lot of brokenness in our lives as well. It's written: The spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness, but who can bear a broken spirit? (Prov. 18:12) Jesus bears our broken Spirit, no matter how it got that way. He searches for the lost and seeks the broken, in order to sustain them. He reveals Himself in several different ways, until we decide to reach out and take His hand. Often times we wait until we're completely broken, and have nowhere else to turn, before we reach out to Him, but rest assured He'll always be there.

If you feel broken, lost, or confused about where you stand in life, then there's only one Man that can give you clarity. When you're in His hands, brokenness can always be fixed. Jesus died to give us life, and He'll renew us as many times as necessary. Don't spend another day in that brokenness, live in victory! No matter what's going on, or how you got there, it doesn't matter, as long as you look to the light that's going to lead you back. Take a few moments to take the God Quiz today. My favorite verse today is: I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick. (Ezekiel 34:16)

ENJOY! http://www.bible.com/scripture-detail.php?juli=2455457&dtype=Scripture

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I love you!