are you broken?

Broken people call His name

Helpless children praise the King
Nothing brings Him greater fame
When broken people call His name

-- from the song Lift High by Fee Band

I meet broken people all the time.  People who have been hurt by others, crushed by disease or poverty.  People who are in the midst of a great deal of pain.  Who do you know that is broken?  Have you ever been broken?

That song is one we use at The Community.  From the first time I heard it my heart melted because of the broken people who are in need to meeting Jesus and allowing real hope to take hold of their lives.  There are broken people around us.  AND when we get honest about our own brokenness, other broken people will find healing.  Yet as I read in this morning, the church and Christians have tendency to look the other way, to forget where we have been and to not help those in need because that can be messy.

But we live in a day where broken people are everywhere.  Look at Haiti and the pain causes of poverty and the waves of destruction from the recent earthquake.  Walk through the hospital halls or drive by the jails.  Even closer to home, drive down the backstreets of your town.  Strike up a conversation with someone you don't know at the store or the like.  What we will find is broken, hurting people.

Those people for the most part have been turned off and even sickened by organized religion.  Depending on their age or even their geographic location, they may have experienced Christians are are more out spoken about what they are against than what they are for.  Maybe they have found that churches are places of judgment rather than love and acceptance.

My heart is crushed by the needs of broken people.  What am I going to do about it?  Are you broken?  I've been there.  And I've learned that God is good.  God wants to work in the lives of the broken through us!

Psalm 147:3 (NLT) --- He heals the broken hearted and bandages their wounds.

God heals our brokenness.

Romans 15:7 (NLT) --- Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory.

God accepts us where we are as we are.

Acts 13:38 (NLT) --- Brothers, listen! We are here to proclaim that through this man Jesus there is forgiveness for your sins.

God gives forgiveness and second chances.

We all need second chances.  We all need to be accepted.  We all need to be healed.  But before we can help others get those things, we have to allow God to do those things in our lives because we are so very often broken.  Are you broken?

Lets help those who are broken around us experience the God who has held us, helped us and healed us in our own brokenness.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (NASB) --- And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness " Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.