Archive for purpose
Getting to the Heart of Things
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A most terrifying and at the same time, comforting, thought is that Jesus knows our hearts. When we face the truth about our own heart, we find two things. We find that, at times, our heart is desperately wicked, strays from God, and seeks our own way. Concurrently, we find that our heart is good and has been changed by God Himself.
We have two natures. The Scripture refers to this as the old nature and the new nature. Our journey with Christ invites us, with the Spirit’s help, to crucify the old nature and its desires and strengthen and feed the new nature.
This journey into our own hearts is initiated by God. I have found that as I know more and more about the truth of my own heart and am able to name my own sin, struggles, and woundedness, I am able to find more of God’s heart. In other words, the journey to know my true heart leads me deeper into knowing God’s heart and vice versa.
In John 21, we find an exchange between Jesus and Peter which has been the topic of many sermons, Bible lessons, and discussions. I’ve been meditating on this passage since last night. This morning, I kept feeling challenged by God that there was much more there than I’d seen before. I invited His Spirit to speak, to teach me, to open my eyes.
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Jesus, the Healer of Broken Hearts
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If we believe that God is purposeful in His actions, then how significant is the fact that the first words of the first message Jesus preached were, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because … He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted…”? (Luke 4:18-19)
Jesus came to heal broken hearts and not only as a side benefit; it’s one of his life purposes! That’s good news because all of us who are in this world have experienced the pain of having our hearts broken in one way or another. If we look at the life of Jesus in the Gospels, we find that he moves throughout his days interacting with humanity and healing broken hearts. That healing takes many expressions. Today I want to look at how Jesus healed the heart of a woman as recorded in John 4 and what that healing means for us now.
Let’s take a look at the story.
Jesus was exhausted from his long trip. He had gone to the city well to get a drink of water. However, what followed was not a chance happening at all because we are told that Jesus “needed” to go through the region of Samaria; he was compelled to do so.
Jews did not have anything to do with Samaritans in those days. Samaritans were considered half-breeds and unclean by Jewish tradition. Yet Jesus, a Jew, chose to go through the middle of Samaria instead of making the usual trip around the area as most Jews did in order to avoid the Samaritans.
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The Power of Awakened Desire
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What do you think of when you think of the word “desire”?
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My Bridge Over Troubled Waters
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In 1969, Paul Simon wrote a powerful song which he and Art Garfunkel recorded in 1970. The expression of Paul’s heart in the song conveys the message that he would be a friend when friends could not be found; that he, himself, would be a bridge over his friend’s troubled water.
I was so struck by this thought yesterday as I listened to a lovely lady share how she had endured so many difficult things, felt alone so often, but God had revealed to her through a prayer team at our church that He had been her bridge every time over those troubled waters. She had not, in fact, been alone. God was there.
How many times have we felt abandoned during our hard times? And truthfully, many people do abandon us, but one thing I have begun to ask God in the last couple of years is that He would show me where He was during dark moments in my past. I, too, find that He has been my bridge, and that often the way He has done that was through others as they became “bridges” for me to walk on. My heart was moved to write these thoughts…
The Bridge
I hear the water below me
The power of its rushing
Stirs the fear within me
Yet the other side
Beckons me to keep walking
This bridge under my feet
Gives me strength
Although it doesn’t completely
Take my fears away
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