Daily Devotional

It is important and healthy for us to look inwardly and allow God to evaluate how we are doing in all areas of our life.  David wrote of this in Psalm 139:23-24 (NLT), “Search me, O God, and know my heart;  test me and know my anxious thoughts.  Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”  Often it is difficult to investigate the deeper recesses of our life and to be honest with how we really are.  God knows all about us and wants us to be open with Him.  In Philippians 3:13-14, the Apostle Paul talks about focusing not on the past but looking forward to what lies ahead.  He looked at his life to see if there was anything that might be keeping him from becoming the man God had saved him to be.  Paul allowed God’s love and grace to heal the deep wounds in his life.  He did not allow these areas of brokenness to hold him back but accepted God’s healing that came through Jesus Christ.

Often, we have become self-satisfied with our spiritual progress or even our lack of spiritual progress.  We might even say that our lives cannot be different this side of heaven.  As a result, we stay bound up with activities and ways of thinking that only make us feel better momentarily.  We stay chained to those thought patterns and activities.  God wants us to experience healing in Jesus Christ who came to set us free from the chains that bind us.

In Luke 4:18, Jesus relates the words of Isaiah to Himself, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners.”  (Isaiah 61:1)

It is easy to compare ourselves to how others are doing spiritually but all along covering our brokenness, so others cannot see it.  We medicate the deep wounds of life with activities or substances that make us feel better momentarily.  These activities become our coping mechanism.  Often, we feel it is not safe to share our woundedness for fear that others will reject/abandon us or be critical in some way.  In many cases we have retreated into our own private worlds where we feel safe.  We don’t let anyone in, not even God.  We often are afraid to share due to shame or pride.  As a result, our Christianity is only surface deep, and we struggle to keep up the front before others.

It is important for us to see how much God loves us.  He desires for us to deal with our brokenness so that we might be free.  Free from the chains that keep us in shame and free to experience God in a real and life changing way.  Christ is inviting us to come to Him with our brokenness.  His love is not only demonstrated to us in salvation, but also as He relates to us each day.
 
As we recognize those areas in our lives that need to change and bring them to the Lord, God’s power will bring healing.  We need to stop clinging to the methods of the past that have not brought true change.  Those methods only make us feel better about our core wounds for a moment.  We need to allow Christ to do more than just fix us but to heal us from the inside out.

Prayer:  Lord, I want to be honest about myself.  There have been hurts and wounds in my life that are difficult for me to handle.  I need the healing that only Your love and grace can bring.  Thank you for being my Healer.  Amen

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.