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Deep Restoration
"For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them (Jesus, Matthew 13:15)."
For some reason... this has been lost in much of the recent offerings of Christianity. Perhaps it has been our pride, which has kept us from admitting that we are broken. Lord knows, A lot of us have done this for years-- and probably are still doing it now. Perhaps it is our fear of getting our hopes up; it seems to good to be true. Perhaps it's been the almost total focus on sin and the Cross. But the Scripture is abundant and clear: Christ came not only to pardon us, but also to HEAL us. Now we're not talking about healing for the scrap that you got when you fell on the sidewalk. I'm talking about healing for the hardcore, gut-renching, agonizing scars deep inside of your heart. Those places in the core of who you are that rip and tear you to your wits end that make you scream and cry for someone to come help get you out of this hell-on-earth kind of storm, and take the pain away. When it comes to habits we cannot quit or patterns we cannot stop, anger that flies out of nowhere, fears we cannot overcome, or weaknesses that we hate to admit-- much of what troubles us comes out of the broken places in our hearts crying out for relief. In all of these examples and many more... He wants the glory restored.
So just stop and think for a second, and let this sink in:
Jesus CAN, and WANTS to, HEAL, your HEART, your SCARS, your BROKEN PIECES.
Can you picture it?
The work of Christ in healing the soul is a deep mystery, more amazing than open heart surgery. Someone described an experience in his life as having Christ "holding the broken parts of my heart in His hands, and bringing them all together, holding them tenderly until His life brought a wholeness or oneness to what was many pieces. That idea of "binding up" involves bringing all the shattered pieces back together into one whole heart.
When we fall at the feet of our Father, and raise the issues that dwell in our hearts, the deep restoration takes over. Some of the our wounds were enough to break our hearts, they created a rift in the soul, but those empty gashes were drenched and filled from the blood that flowed off the face of our precious Savior on Calvary.
When we are in the presence of the Father, removed from distractions, we are able to hear him more clearly, and those deep wounds hidden in depths of our heart are brought to the surface. We ask God to surround us with His presence. We give ourselves back over to him, and declare the authority of Jesus over our hearts.... That is where the Deep Restoration takes place. No amount of friends, drugs, sex, alcohol, or any other substance you use will never compare to miraculous power that is in Jesus Christ... NOTHING.
Remember, it doesn't take a divorce or sexual abuse to create a broken heart. However... the bottom line is, Jesus speaks as though we are all the brokenhearted in need of something more... and that something is Him.
If your going through a time of hurt or pain in your life that has left you beaten and scared, remember that the price has already been paid so that you don't have to live in the pain. So that you don't have to do things on your own. There is a Savior who is crying out to you pleading for you to come running to Him, So that you can experience the LIFE and POWER in the presence of His GRACE and LOVE that He has for you.
As long as we have these unhealed places within us, these rifts in the soul, we will find it next to impossible to live in freedom and victory. Those places keep undermining us at crucial moments, cutting off at the knees, and our Enemy knows them well and uses them against us. We are desperately in need of the stream of Healing, that Deep Restoration, so that we may go on to walk this journey with Christ, and the many things that He has in store for us.
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