Journeying to Easter - Part 2Sample

The beauty of brokenness

If I am down in a pit, I can do one of three things. I can give up in despair, resigning myself to my fate. I can frantically try to climb out, all the time realising my attempts will be futile. Or I can wait for rescue to come, to haul me out, to save me from despair, to do what I myself was unable to do.

This is a sort of picture of how we get right with God. We need not surrender to despair. We need not try to do it all ourselves. God has made an offer of rescue: He doesn’t want us to live in the pit.

The fact is that when it comes to friendship with God, we are all by nature in the pit. We can’t help ourselves; we are spiritually bankrupt. The only way to the extravagant riches of God’s kindness is an acknowledgement of our utter poverty. To admit our spiritual poverty is not to say we can do no good: it’s an admission that all our goodness is not good enough for a holy God.

Nor is spiritual poverty adopting a gloomy, sad-sack mentality. We remain valued human beings who are capable of much good despite our estrangement from God.

Spiritual bankruptcy is not meant to drive us to despair or misery. It’s meant to drive us to amazing grace. It is not meant to be a passport to a defeated life but rather a passport to the richness of life under the rule of God.

Written by DAVID REAY