The Brokenhearted - - Central

What we bank on for the fulfillment of our heart is extremely important. Most things we place our hope in are susceptible to leaving us confused, alone, and hurt when they fall apart. We find out our spouse has cancer. We lose our job. Our son/daughter informs us that they want nothing to do with Christ. We are still not married, and the pressure is building. Continue the list for yourself... Every single one of us is part of the community of the broken hearted. We have all experienced a broken heart at one level or another. It is important to name this. How has broken heartedness manifested itself in your story? Jesus came, fulfilling the prophecy in Isaiah, to "bind up" the broken hearted. This concept, binding up, means to tie up a wound. Jesus heals our broken hearts. How? God is love (1 John 4:16). When we pursue things other than love, our hearts crack. When we turn to God his essential nature binds our hearts. The news is incredible...God desires to pour out his love on us and heal our broken hearts. It doesn't matter if the brokenness is due to something outside our control, or do to our own sin. God cares about the brokenness in your life (Psalm 34:18). In the middle of our brokenness, we can allow God, in his true essence which is love, to begin healing us. It is incredibly simple. Yet it is incredibly difficult. It is simple in that we don't need to bring anything to the equation. It's difficult in that God does not want to simply restore our old dreams, but transform us and give us new hopes and dreams. It needs to be mentioned yet again that the purpose of our transformation does not end with ourselves. In fact, it only begins there. God wants to transform you in order that you overflow (Romans 15:13) and put his story on display through your life, thereby influencing the culture you live in for the sake of the gospel. Isaiah 61:1