DONT WASTE YOUR SORROWS : GOD HEALS THE BROKEN HEARTED AND USES THEM TO HEAL THE BROKEN HEARTED
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OUTLINE
1. PROXIMITY
2. POSSIBILITY
3. PITY
4. PARTNERSHIP
5. POWER
6. PROLIFERATE
7. PERFUME
THE MESSAGE
DONT WASTE YOUR SORROWS : GOD HEALS THE BROKEN HEARTED AND USES THEM TO HEAL THE BROKEN HEARTED
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1. PROXIMITY
The Lord is close to those who are broken hearted and crushed in their spirit. There are many experiences in life that can break our hearts such as disappointments, deaths , hurts , failures ,missed opportunities, loss etc. At such times we may be lonely and feel forsaken by others. But the wonderful promise is that the Lord is close to us at such times . We must realise the close presence of God and allow him him to minister to us and heal our broken hearts.
SCRIPTURE REFERENCES
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PSALM 34:18
" The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. "
PSALM 51:17
" The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. "
PSALM 147:3
" He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. "
2. POSSIBILITY
The Lord heals our broken hearts and wants us to minister to others who are going through the same experience in their lives. Whenever we go through an experience of brokenness in our lives , we are in an unique position to be used by the Lord to minister healing and restoration to the broken hearted . The wounds of Jesus ministers healing to our lives . In the same way , we can allow the Lord to use the wounds in our lives to minister healing to others . We must allow the Lord to heal our wounds and then we can use that healing experience to reach out to others and enable them to experience the same healing in their lives. Instead of mourning over our heart breaking experiences , we must see the possibility of using them to become a channel of healing to others.
SCRIPTURE REFERENCES
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JOHN 12:24
" I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. "
2 CORINTHIANS 1:3-4
" Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."
I PETER 2:24
" He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. "
3. PITY
The Lord is seated on the throne of Grace with a heart of compassion towards us because He can sympathize with all our weaknesses. During His life on earth , the Lord has gone through all the trials and tribulations and temptations that we go through in our lives and He understands our pain and sorrow and humiliation and temptations . Therefore we can approach Him confidently in our times of brokeness because He understands us and sympathizes with our weaknessess and He is ready to shower His grace and mercy upon us.
SCRIPTURE REFERENCES
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ISAIAH 53:3-5
" He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,and by his wounds we are healed. "
HEBREWS 4:15-16
" For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.
Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. "
4. PARTNERSHIP
The Lord went through a path of suffering and pain to fulfill His mission on the cross. If we want to know the Lord intimately in our lives , we should be willing to be a partaker in His sufferings . The Apostle Paul realised that if he wanted to Know Christ in an intimate way , he should have the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings . If we do not want to share in the sufferings of Christ , we cannot really know Christ in an intimate way. Therefore whenever we go through a path of suffering and brokeness , it is an opportunity for us to know Christ intimately because we are sharing in His sufferrings.
SCRIPTURE REFERENCES
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PHILIPPIANS 3:10-11
" I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. "
I PETER 4:12-13
" Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.
But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed."
PHILIPPIANS 1:29
" For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, "
5. POWER
The Lord reveals His power in our times of weakness and brokeness. Sometimes we may face trials and challenges which are not removed from our lives. The Apostle Paul experienced a thorn in the flesh which was not removed despite his repeated prayers . But the Lord revealed to him , that at such times the grace of God will be sufficient for him. The Lord reveals His power in our weakness . We will remain humble about everything that we accomplish in our time of weakness , because we realise that it is only the power of God that helped us to achieve it. Therefore we can boast about our heart breaking experiences , because the Lord in His grace and mercy , choses such times to reveal His power in our lives and helps us accomplish great things even in our state of weakness. We are humbled by such experiences because we know it is purely the grace of God .
SCRIPTURE REFERENCES
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2 CORINTHIANS 12:9-10
" But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. "
6. PROLIFERATE
The Lord can take our life experiences and use it to bless multiitudes . If we allow the Lord to heal our broken hearts and use us to heal the broken hearted , then all our life experiences of pain and sorrow and brokenness will not go in vain. Instead they can be an instrument in the hand of the Lord to heal and bless multitiudes. The Lord who took a little lad’s food of five loaves and two fishes and fed more than five thousand , can do the same when we give all our life experiences in His hand. Just as He blessed and broke the bread and multiplied it , the Lord can take our lives in all its brokeness and multiply our usefulness to others.
SCRIPTURE REFERENCES
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MATTHEW 14: 15-21
" As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food."
Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat."
"We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish," they answered.
"Bring them here to me," he said.
And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.
They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.
The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children. "
7. PERFUME
The Lord can use our lives as a perfume and an incense and a fragrance to spread the knowledge of Him. Just as the perfume which filled the house with its fragrance , when the woman broke the jar of expensive perfume and poured it on Jesus , our lives can be a fragrance to the Lord and to the people around us when we allow the Lord to lead us through a process of brokeness. The heart breaking experiences of life can actually shape us and cause us to become a incense of sweet fragrance to the Lord and an instrument of drawing others to the knowledge of God . We should not allow ourselves to become bitter and disillusioned by the heart breaking experiences of Life . Instead we must allow the Lord to work in our hearts in our times of brokeness and transform us into a sweet smelling incense unto Him and to the world.
SCRIPTURE REFERENCES
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MARK 14:3
" While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.
JOHN 12:3
" Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. "
2 CORINTHIANS 2:14-15
" But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him.
For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing."
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