A Prayer For The Broken Hearted

A Prayer For The Broken Hearted

Words by Chelsey Scott (based on a prayer from “The Valley Of Vision”) Music by Chelsey Scott © 2006 Petit Bateau Music (ASCAP)

"No day in my life has past, that hasn't proved me guilty

Prayers are uttered too fast, from a heart that’s cold and empty.

Chorus: Oh Blessed Jesus, May we find a covert in thy wounds

Though our sins, they rise to meet us, how they fall next to the merits of you

All in me calls for this, it calls for my rejection

This heavy unrighteousness, oh is there no protection?

My best services are rags, my best deeds are filthy;

Grant me hear thy shoring voice, that in thy wounds is pardon

Grant me see thy willing choice to make my hard heart softened

Keep the broken-hearted sure, clinging to thy cross, our cure;"

Folk I hope this has been a blessing to you as it has to me. May we always look to Christ and the cross, and not on our righteousness which is but filthy rags. This song is from Indelible Grace Music, if you would like to listen to this and other great music please visit www.igracemusic.com or purchase their music in the itunes store. God bless.

Confession of sin

Almight Lord, we have been willing to listen to sin's deceptive talk.

We have walked in the counsel of its arrogance.

We treat with contempt Your gifts of kindness, thinking ourselves to be entitled to what we have.

We believe we are righteous whithout You, when our righteousness is from You.

We make ourselves judges, when we ourselves are under judement.

We glory in our successes, when our very breath comes from You.

We have turned away from forgiveness and mercy to grudges and bitterness.

We justify our wrongs, excuse our lack of goodness and smile at sin's presence.

Strengthen our hearts in Christ. Invigorate us to do Your will, that we might honor the precious name of Jesus, our Lord. Amen!

Puritan Prayer - Confession and Petition

Holy Lord, I have sinned times without number, and been guilty of pride and unbelief, of failure to find Thy mind in Thy Word, of neglect to seek Thee in my daily life. My transgressions and short-comings present me with a list of accusations, but I bless Thee that they will not stand against me, for all have been laid on Christ. Go on to subdue my corruptions, and grant me grace to live above them. Let not the passions of the flesh nor lustings of the mind bring my spirit into subjection, but do Thou rule over me in liberty and power.

I thank Thee that many of my prayers have been refused. I have asked amiss and do not have, I have prayed from lusts and been rejected, I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness. Go on with Thy patient work, answering 'no' to my wrongful prayers, and fitting me to accept it. Purge me from every false desire, every base aspiration, everything contrary to Thy rule. I thank Thee for Thy wisdom and Thy love, for all the acts of discipline to which I am subject, for sometimes putting me into the furnace to refine my gold and remove my dross.

No trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin. If Thou shouldst give me choice to live in pleasure and keep my sins, or to have them burnt away with trial, give me sanctified affliction. Deliver me from every evil habit, every accretion of former sins, everything that dims the brightness of Thy grace in me, everything that prevents me taking delight in Thee. Then I shall bless Thee, God of jeshurun, for helping me to be upright.

Puritan Prayer - Sin!

Merciful Lord,
Pardon all my sins of this day, week, year, all the sins of my life, sins of early, middle, and advanced years, of omission and commission, of morose, peevish and angry tempers, of lip, life and walk, of hard-heartness, unbelief, presumption, pride, of unfaithfulness to the souls of men, of want of bold decision in the cause of Christ, of deficiency in outspoken zeal for His glory, of bringing dishonor upon Thy great name, of deception, injustice, untruthfulness, in my dealings with others, of impurity in thought, word and deed, of covetousness, which is idolatry, of substance unduly hoarded, improvidently squandered, not consecrated to the glory of Thee, the Great Giver; sins in private and in the family, in study and recreation, in the busy haunts of men, in the study of Thy Word and in the neglect of it, in prayer irreverently offered and coldly withheld, in time misspent, in yielding to Satan’s wiles in opening my heart to his temptations, in being unwatchful when I know him nigh, in quenching the Holy Spirit; sins against light and knowledge, against conscience and restraints of Thy Spirit, against the law of eternal love.

Pardon all my sins, known and unknown, felt and unfelt, confessed and not confessed, remembered or forgotten. Good Lord, hear; and hearing, forgive.

From Valley of Vision -a Collection of Puritan Prayers

God is Holy

Holiness is the attribute of God that is most forgotten in the Church today, however it is one that we can not afford to forget. Even a slight understanding of the holiness of God reinstates the true Gospel. Holiness is a foundational attribute of God, one that must be understood, otherwise the redemptive work on the cross means absolutely nothing. By understanding His holiness, even in a small way we are able to a glimpse of ourselves and our total depravity. Through His holiness the love of God in the redemptive work of the cross and the resurrection is most magnified, but it all starts with holiness. 

  So what does the word “holy” mean? It comes from the Hebrew word “qadosh” which means “separated”, “marked off”, “placed apart”, “withdrawn from common use.” There are two important meanings when referring to the holiness of God. 

1.) God is "transcendent" above His creation (Transcendence “to go beyond”, “rise above”, or “exceed.” God is not merely “quantitative” (the same but greater), but “qualitative”, (God is a completely different being.)  

  God not only transcends His creation but He also is transcendent when it comes to His creation’s corruption. He is pure and spotless, and the foundation of His throne is righteousness the Bible says. The transcendence of God, perhaps can better be understood with this somewhat trite illustration. If one were to ask ‘Is God more like an angel or an earth worm?’ The correct answer is neither, you can’t compare Him to anyone or anything. In doing so I would submit to you, that is blasphemy, when trying to describe God outside of what the Bible already says about Him. 

Exodus 15:11 "Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?" There is no one like our God! (Also see 1st Samuel 2:2, Jo 15:15, and Isaiah 40:25)

  2.) The second important word when it comes to understanding His holiness is “preeminent” which essentially means that it is impossible to understand the character of God apart from His holiness. Above all things God is holy. We see this very clearly demonstrated in Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8. In these verses we see something called a Hebrew parallelism (Chiasmus) When we want to put emphasis on a word or phrase we will put in bold letters or underline it, but in the Hebrew language when they wanted to emphasize something they would repeat it. You can see this though out the Old Testament. For example in Psalm 119:105 “You word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” The same thing is being said twice (lamp to my feet, light to my path).

   Again in Isaiah 6:3 we see the same thing when the seraphim are flying around the Throne of God crying "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is filled with His glory!" Do you see the parallelism? In Revelation 4:8 this is used once again to emphasis the holiness of God. Never once in a scripture do we see any other attribute emphasized the way that the Holiness of God is. We don’t, God is love, love, love, or merciful, merciful, merciful. No! We see Holy, Holy, Holy! Do you think the Bible is trying to get at something? Yes, God is Love, God is Merciful and God is Just but we must understand that God, above all is holy, in order to understand the rest of His character and nature. 

  Holiness is the foundation of all that God is and does. I have heard people ask questions wondering if there is anything that God can not do. For example “Can God sin? I’ve heard some really weird answers about this, such as, “well, God can do whatever He wants.” Or “well, if He does it’s for a good reason” or “oh, it wouldn’t be sinning for Him.” Anyone who is actually thinking such things that God can commit a sin: 1. Needs to read their Bible more, and 2. Is completely not understanding the holiness of God. The Bible is very clear that there are things that God can not do. 

  Many verses back up this point: Psalm 5:4 “For you are not a God who delights in wickedness: evil may not dwell with you.” Job 34:10 "Therefore, hear me, you men of understanding: far be it from God that he should do wickedness, and from the Almighty that he should do wrong." 

1 John 1:5 "This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."

 

  Through these verses we can very clearly see that God can not sin. He can’t even look at sin or dwell with wickedness. James 1:13 (and I am paraphrasing) God can not tempt or be tempted. If God can not even tempt, than He most certainly can not sin. He can’t go against His own nature and His very nature is the very opposite of everything that is evil. God’s character and nature does not change. Holiness is the foundation of all that God is and does. In my next blog I will talk about more practical holiness, and what the Bible was talking about in Hebrews 12:14 “Strive for peace with everyone, and of the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”

Love

"To be constrained by the love of Christ creates a life heroic, exalted, illustrious: no, I must come down from such lofty words—it is such a life as every Christian ought to live; it is such a life as every Christian must live if he is really constrained by the love of Christ, for the text does not say the love of Christ ought to constrain us, it declares that it does constrain us."     - Charles H. Spurgeon 

The question that has been plaguing me and the question I would like to pose to you is... How do you view God/Jesus, as your pal or boyfriend who is just so lonely and longs to hang out with you and He just wants to fill that emptiness inside your heart with this "hold me and cuddle me" kind of love. Or do you view God and His love as the Bible describes? For He is The God, Almighty Maker of heaven and earth. He raises up kingdoms and pulls them down. He holds the universe in the palm of His hand. He is The Holy God who judges the world in righteousness. He is our provider of every breath and every day that by His grace He allows us to live. He is our Savior who suffered and died under the full wrath of God, taking the punishment for our total depravity. He created the universe and everything in it in six twenty-four hour days. He created you in His image and likeness and you are fearfully and wonderfully made. He loves us so perfectly that if we repent and trust the Savior, He gives us the right to be called sons and daughters of God. He is Immanuel "God with us".

Now all that being said, I do want to make one thing very clear, I am not saying that we should keep God at a distance, and not view Him as our Heavenly Father, for He does care very deeply for His children. We are still to seek for a deep personal relationship with Jesus Christ and a love for Him, but this love we are have for Him must be properly defined using scripture. Any time we see the word "love" in scripture pertaining to God's love for us is a self-sacrificial love, a love that is perfect in all that it is, for God is Love. And if we look at 1 John 4:8-10 "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." We see love in its greatest demonstration, the cross. This kind of love is so much better and more beautiful than the trite seemingly romantic love sung about in modern Christian music and preached from many music stands each Sunday. Nowhere in scripture when talking about the love of God or Jesus, does it use a romantic or trite language, and no the Song of Solomon doesn't count. It is an ancient Hebrew poem written to describe the eros love (sexual, emotional love) between a man and a woman in the confines of marriage. God's love for us is also the love of a father, who cares very deeply for His children, so deeply that He sent His only begotten Son into the world to die on the cross for wretched, depraved sinners. That is the love of God, the love of Jesus. Yes, we can cast all our cares upon Him, come to Him with our needs, and pour out our hearts to Him and He has compassion and mercy on those who love and fear Him, but He is still Almighty God, the Just Judge of the universe, He is still holy, and it is that holiness that wholly demands our reverence, respect, honor and worship. 

That is the love the Father has for us. But how are we to view Him and love Him, are we to see Him as our pal who we would chat about sports with and tell jokes with on the golf course, or is He our husband, our boyfriend, our bridegroom. Again nowhere in scripture does it instruct us to love God or Jesus in these ways. When Jesus tells us what the greatest commandment of scripture is ("You shall love the Lord you God with all you heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.") the word "love" in the Greek is translated agapao which simply means to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly. This is the word used all over the new testament when referring to Jesus' love for us or our love for Him. You may be thinking right now, well Jesus says He is the bridegroom and He calls me His bride. Well you are right and wrong, Jesus indeed does call Himself the bridegroom, you are right. But He never calls you or I the bride, He calls the collective body of believers, known as the church, His bride, not the individual. This way of thinking is very dangerous, I have heard of church in Africa which glorifies sex as a form of worship and teaches there members it's okay to fantasize about having sex with Jesus, and about a woman who was having dreaming about having sex with Jesus. And people get these disgusting ideas by allegorizing the Song of Solomon, that is just a very pour and dangerous way to read and interpret the Bible. And we see this a lot in our modern Christian music, romantic language. We are singing love songs to Jesus or He is sing them to us. Without severely twisting scripture we cannot find this kind of language us when God is talking about His love for us or how we are to love Him. Infact many time especially in 1 John it is said if you love me, you will keep my commandments or those who love me keep my commandments, or my favorite 1 John 5:3 "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome."

In closing I just want to talk a little more about this bridegroom theology and what it really means and how it should be interpreted. 

So God, at the end of time, has prepared a church, the bride, a collective body of called out ones, for His Son, to say "here You go Son, this is My gift to You so that You can be glorified, and Jesus, showing that there is nothing degrading about taking a submissive role says, "Father, its for Your glory, here its Yours." The bride "the church" and Jesus the "bridegroom" is all about bringing glorying to God the Father. 

The Love of God!

"Never did his love begin, and never can it cease. It is from eternity, and shall be to eternity."

- C H Spurgeon

Dear Reader,

Today I would like to share with you one of the most awesome things God has shown me lately through His Holy Word. I want to share on the love of God, a love that is perfect, pure, unconditional, and faithful. As Christian one of the hardest things you will ever have to do is to look into the mirror of God's Word and see your sin as it truly is, and believe God loves you as much as He says He does. That is a good thing but a hard thing. To fully grasp this love of God, lets start with some verses you may not expect to hear when talking about the love of God. 

Exo 3:14  God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM."

When Moses asked God, "who are You?" God said "I AM WHO I AM". It's like if an alien came down and asked you who you are, you could say "I am like him or, in a sense like her, I am like the rest of everyone on this planet, but when God is asked this, He says "I AM THAT I AM", for there is nothing and no one for Him to compare to, He is who He is, He is GOD! He is not like you, and He is most certainly not like me, thank goodness. He's not just a large version of us. Again, He is GOD! 

God's love is the same way, nothing can describe or compare to it. We can not even begin to measure His love, describe it is some way that is worthy, or must less show the kind of love God has shown us. Jesus Christ is the only man who can show this kind of love for He is both God and man and He is perfect. And the one event that shows love in all its fullness, perfection, and beauty is the cross and what Jesus did at Calvary. Our love as humans, that is for example a fathers love for his son, is like hatred compared to God's love for His Son, and so great is God's love for His people, that He would

sacrifice His ONLY Son for our sinful undeserving souls.

Now, I would like to take a look at Psalm 7:11-13

God is a righteous judge, And a God who has indignation every day.  (12)  If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword; He has bent His bow and made it ready.  (13)  He has also prepared for Himself deadly weapons; He makes His arrows fiery shafts.

I know what you are thinking right now, "this verse doesn't have anything to do with love, so why do I bring it up when talking about the love of God?" 

The love of God is perfectly displayed in all its glory on the cross of Calvary. Where Christ, God's only Son, took upon Himself the full wrath of God, that was due you, because of your wickedness. God is angry at sin, He is wrath filled because of sin, and if we can understand God's holy hatred toward sin, and that we deserve nothing but Hell for eternity, than His LOVE is all the more beautiful, and glorious. Take this analogy for example, during the day you look up, where did all the stars go? Did someone remove them? No! They are there, we you just can't see them. But when the night grows black as pitch, the stars come out in all their glory. The more you see your sin and how dark your depravity is, the more gloriously revealed is the love of God the Father toward you. 

The darker the night the more brilliantly you can see the light. What you must understand before you can comprehend the magnitude of the love of God, is your own sin. We are not just lost sheep looking for God, we are not deserving of what He has done. As Romans 3:11 says, "There is NONE who seek after God." Unless you and I understand what we were, sinners, enemies of God, under judgment, deserving death, Hell, and condemnation, unless we believe all that, the magnitude of the love of God is all together lost!

So there is a sense that when we understand the darkness of our own heart and what we actually deserve before God, then we can begin to rejoice and appreciate the love of God. This is why people who were saved out of a life of drunkenness, murder, sexual immorality, drugs etc., have such a zeal, they know what they were.

"The deeper and darker the picture is painted, with regard to our moral failings, the greater and more intensely is the glory of God revealed." -Paul Washer

God is love! But He loves us because of Him, and inspite of us. You are loved because God is love, not because of your performance. Some people serve God so He will love them, this is pointless and wrong. On the other hand others serve God because He loves them, and they love God. We love Him because He first loved us and gave Himself up for us, and if we love Him, we will keep His commandments.

Romans 5:6-9 is, I believe, one of the greatest pictures of God's love for us in all of Scripture, yes even more than John 3:16, cause these verses show how undeserving of such a love we are, yet freely given by God.

Rom 5:6-9  For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  (7)  For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.  (8)  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  (9)  Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 

It starts out in verse 6, "while we were still helpless." In the Greek that word "helpless" can also be translated as "sick" or even "unimpressive", there was nothing impressive about us, our malady of sin dooming our souls to Hell. But, the best part, "in the right time" or "opportune time", CHRIST, the Son God, the Holy One, the Pure Spotless Lamb of God, DIED for us the "ungodly".

Now, I don't have a son, but I know that I wouldn't sacrifice my son for a wicked person, or even for you.  Not many would die for a righteous man, and very few would even dare to die for a good man. Thank God, He is not like me or like you! But verse 8 sums the love of God up in one verse. But God, this little word "but" is such a beautiful word, that is often over looked! BUT GOD, the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Holy One who will judge the world in righteousness, demonstrated His love. It was like God said, "Let me show you how much I love you. Despite your wickedness and depravity, I will send my only Son, Jesus Christ to die for you. 

"Christ did not die to make his Father loving, but because his Father is loving: the atoning blood is the outflow of the very heart of God toward us." C H Spurgeon

Now verse 9 is so important cause it shows us what and how a we are actually saved from by this love. God being just, can't justify us from His wrath, a payment must be made to satisfy God's wrath and justice. Look at the first three words of verse nine, "much more then", Paul is say basically "because of verse eight, we have verse nine. Christ died for us while we were yet sinners and through His death we are justified, and shall be saved from the wrath of God. This is so important, it is the central doctrine of justification, without it we can not be saved. 

"Jesus must have found the cause of His love in His own heart, He could not have found it in us, for it is not there." -C H Spurgeon

Now verse 10 I saved until now because it, well you will see why.

Rom 5:10  "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."

This verse, simply sums up everything I just said, but it is such a beautiful thought, while we were enemies we were reconciled to God, to be made right with God, through the death of His Son, Jesus Christ. And we shall be saved by His life, for Christ did not remain dead. No! He rose again, and is coming back to take His Beloved to glory, and to cast everyone who rejects this love into eternal hell.

If you are not saved, you have just heard the good news of the gospel, now you must repent and believe the gospel, and put you faith in Jesus Christ, cry out to God to save you. No one has ever come to God seeking salvation that God has not saved.

If God put us in the coolest part of hell it would be more than we would deserve, if He would only make us angels it would be more than we deserve, but He makes us sons and daughters. The worst sin you can commit is to break the greatest commandment God gave, "love the Lord you God with all your heart, soul and strength. How can we keep this? Because He first loved us.

Oh, what love! Christian, I would plead with you please don't belittle such love. Don't minimize it as many do with ideas that God's love for us is a little romantic love or a love like He's your best pal, it is so much greater than these trite forms of love. Study the love of God as He displays it in Scripture and you will find a much more beautiful love than anything you ever imagined or thought it was like.

If you Christian, doubt God's love, it is wrong, you're doubting His character, you say He is not who He says He is, or He hasn't done what He says He's done. God has never given you any reason to doubt His love. A true Christian when seeing the love of God, wants to give more of themselves to God, to growing in holiness and to grow in their love for God. The non-Christian will hear of the love of God and continue living in their sins, relying on grace, without repentance and faith, to save them.

Now I want to leave you with this last thought. If God loved you at your darkest, ugliest moment in you life, how much does He love you now, through the reconciliation of the blood of His Son?

Thanks you for reading, and may God shed abroad His love in your heart. God Bless! 

For His Glory!

Jordan Bednar