Praying for the Brokenhearted - Kathy Riggs

Luke 4:18  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

Have you suffered some heartbreaking experiences in your life? Jesus has come to heal your broken heart. He has provided for you and He is able and willing to meet your need. I would like to share a link with you where sister Kathy Riggs ( I have come to appreciate her through the blog talk radio ministry with John McTernan ) shares a message of healing for those with broken and shattered hearts. In the video she prays for the Lord to heal the broken in heart.  Please take the time to watch this video.

Kathy Riggs - Healing for the Brokenhearted

Giving God all the Pieces of a Broken Life

Give it all to Jesus!









Jesus said in Luke 4: 18 & 19  (NKJV )

The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Healing is from The Lord....

Psalm 46:10 
Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

picture from coffee4thesoul.wordpress.com

Be Still And Know ( author unknown )

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Be still and know that I am God
Be still and know that I am God
Be still and know that I am God

I am the Lord that healeth thee
I am the Lord that healeth thee
I am the Lord that healeth thee

In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust
In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust
In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust

Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

Exodus 15:26  And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.

Betrayed and Brokenhearted - the path marked Brokenness....

Psalm 57 1-2 Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.

I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me.

photo from reallyobins.wordpress.com

Here is a poem I wrote - maybe you can relate as well.....

Morning dawns.

 sunny skies, bliss, togetherness,

happy, walking, caring, sharing, togetherness,

life and living, working, family, time, foreverness,

friendship, love, trust, close, yearning foreverness,

Life.

Questions forming, why, praying, seeking answers,

alert, mission, reasons, unable to love, loveless,

Ready or not, 

Surprise.

Been Betrayed

caught, lies, secret, robbed, deceit, mocked...betrayed

torn, stolen, despair, hopeless, tears, crying,

sleepless, lonely, afraid, broken, ruined, pain,

Destroyed. 

Midnight Sorrow

darkness, smoke, breathless, 

dragging the broken, rejected,

unable to rise, abused

Strengthless 

Anger.

grief, sadness, forgotten, bruised, wounded

questions, trust...how... looking for answers....

Loss.

God.

real, heart, moment of intervention,

 insight, Bible, courage, time, prayer

He cares, He loves, He's here, He redeems,

Alone with God.

Forgiveness.

consequences, determination, 

love, grace, mercy, gift, family,

Hope. Eternity. Redeemed.

In God's Hand. Peace.

Only with God is life and living possible again.

Forgiveness - Sunday Sermon

Sunday Sermon Review September 23,2012
(from my home church that I attend regularly)
How Many Times Should I Forgive?
( I would like to encourage everyone reading this to also check out my blogpost that I wrote June 28 titled "Forgiving the hard stuff, Justice and Healing".) link here

 http://sharingthefaith-northernsparrow.blogspot.ca/2012/06/forgiveness.html

The service began with the singing of several newer songs and also  the song When I Survery the Wondrous Cross / O the Wonderful Cross.
We are continuing on in our book of Matthew series. The sermon today was based on Matthew 18: 21-35.
The youth pastor  - Kellin  was our speaker today.
Kellin began his message with sharing his excitement of worshipping together this morning. He did a recap of the last couple of Sundays of how we come to the Lord as a child with childlike faith. And confronting a fellow believer is done as a rescue mission with the goal being restoration.
This all ties in with today's message of forgiveness.

Here is more of what Pastor Kellin preached on forgiveness:
Forgiveness is hard.
In the Scripture passage, Peter comes to Jesus with the question -  Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Kellin pointed out that in context this is referring to the people within our closest circles of relationships.  People closest to us will hurt us the most when they sin against us. We need to be forgiving toward everyone inside and outside of our circles.
Peter thought that 7 was the perfect holy number so 7 times would surely be sufficient. Jesus responds  Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
Jesus was teaching us not to take revenge but rather forgive whenever someone wrongs us time and time again. Extending forgiveness is hard. Jesus went to the cross and paid our debt there that we never could pay ourselves.
Continuing on in the passage, Kellin now explained the depth of the debt the servant owed to his master Matthew 18:24-27 And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents.
 But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.
  The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
  Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.
How much is 10,000 talents in today's money? - 1 talent equals 15 years of wages so 10,000 talents = 150,000 years of wages. That would be the equivalent of $6 Billion in todays world. So we see it was an unpayable amount of debt. The Master cancelled this amount of debt that his servant owed him.
Now this man ( whose 6 billion dollar ) debt has been cancelled goes out and sees his fellow servant who owes him Verse 28 But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: This would equal about 1/2 year of wages so about $16,000. This is a debt that actually could be paid.  Though the first man had been forgiven a huge debt he was unable to forgive his fellowman a much smaller debt and threw the man in prison. Verse 30 - 35  And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt.  So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done.  Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me:  Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.
Application:
When we cannot forgive it leaves people questioning our Christianity.
Forgiveness cost us. By choosing to forgive we take revenge off the table.
Forgiveness does not mean we forget nor does it mean that the wrong we have suffered it not serious or real. It also does not mean that there are no consequences to the one who has offended us and whom we are now forgiving.
We find freedom when we let them off "our hook." We give it over to God and allow Him to deal with the situation.
Scars will remain. Forgiving is a process, a journey. It is not instantaneous but rather a continual laying it down before the Lord. The pain and hurt can and will resurface. Continually give your hurt feelings over to God. We do not want to carry the burden of our hurt anymore.
We have all been forgiven a magnitude of debt. Christ paid the debt that we could never pay.
Be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful.
The service closed with the Lord's Prayer.

The closing song was "Amazing Grace - my Chains are gone".
 

Biblical Repentance....

We see the need of repentance in our own personal lives. We see the need of it in our churches and on a national level. If we want to see God withhold His Hand of judgement in our lives and in our churches and on our nation, we need to come to Him in humility and repent - turn from the wickedness and seek the Lord God with our whole heart.
But what is repentance? Repentance is a change of mind to the point where it changes your actions. It is a point of turning. You are going in one direction - you come to the knowledge of sin and you make a complete change and turn from it. You seek forgiveness from that sin with a determination to not repeat again.
In the Old Testament we read many places where it uses the word repent to describe how God withheld the punishment he was going to inflict on people when they turned from their sinful ways. A good example of this is in the story of Jonah. Jonah preached to the people of Nineveh saying that God would destroy Nineveh in 40 days if the people continued on in their sin and in Jonah 3: 10 it says  And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
The story of Jonah is also a good one to show us what real repentance from sin looks like. It is not just saying "oh sorry God I messed up" and then continue on without any further thought and next thing you know, you are doing that very same thing again and the quick "sorry God"  did not change you at all.
Our sin grieves the heart of God and in the story of Jonah, God was grieved over the sin of the people in Nineveh. In Jonah 1:2 God says to Jonah - Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. Jonah did not go as the Lord God instructed and he had that whole experience inside the belly of the great fish. But in Jonah 3 God again sends Jonah to the city of Nineveh.and this is the message he brings -  Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. At hearing this the people acknowledge their sinful ways and turn to the Lord for forgiveness. Jonah 3:5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. Here we see that the realization of their sin brings sorrow to their hearts. They believe God's message - God is Holy and we have sinned against Him.
Jonah 3: 8-9  But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

Repentance involves your mind, your emotions, and your will.
1) Mind - within your heart you must be convicted that God has the authority to tell you what is sin. You must believe the Bible when it tells you what God considers to be sin. The Ten commandments tell us the heart of God. I would encourage everyone to read my blog post on the Ten Commandments. If anyone reading this doesn't know what grieves the heart of God, Galatians 5: 19-21 tells you
¹⁹ Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
²⁰ Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
²¹ Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

2) Emotions - You become broken and ashamed of your sin. This definitely involves crying out to God for mercy and you grieve over your sin and for most people this would involve the shedding of some tears.
3) Will - You need to have a plan of action. You need to plan how you together with the help of God are going to make this change happen. This involves making things right with other people. This involves prayer, burying yourself in the Word of God, seeking Him with your whole heart. You hate the very sin that you used to love because now you see it as God sees it. You hate the sin and want no part in it at all.

You will know you have repented when you see these Fruits of Repentance in your life:
1) Absence of rationalization - you are no longer looking for a way to justify what you have done, or blame it on others or explain it to make it seem like no big deal. There is an absence of phrases like - "everyone is doing it" or " the devil made me do it", or "I just couldn't help it", or " it's just how I am and you will just have to accept it", etc
2) Genuine Sorrow, Heartbrokeness - You are genuinely sorry for what you have done. Even if you get the chance to do that sin thing again, you will not do it because now you hate it, the very thought that you did it other times sickens you. As I mentioned earlier you are grieving over your sin.
3) Open Confession of Sin - You are no longer trying to hide it. It is out in the open now. You have stepped away from that former lifestyle. You need to confess this to the people close to you and sometimes to your church. You are accountable to God.
4) Restitution - You want to make things right with those you hurt. You are willing to do whatever it takes to make things right. We see the heart of one who wants to make restitution in the story of Zacchaeus  Luke 19 verses 8-9 :  And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.  And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham.

So again I say we see the need of repentance in our own personal lives. We see the need of it in the churches and on a national level. If we want to see God withhold His Hand of judgement in our lives and in our churches and on our nation, we need to come to Him in humility and repent - turn from the wickedness and seek the Lord God with our whole heart.