Text: Matthew 26:6-7
Memory verse
“Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.”
John 12:3 NKJV
Alan Redpath said: “God will never plant the seed of His life upon the soil of a hard, unbroken spirit. He will only plant that seed where the conviction of His Spirit has brought brokenness and where the soil has been watered with tears of repentance as well as tears of joy.” You will recall that in yesterday’s edition, we saw how the lobster goes through that scary and painful process of replacing its old limiting shell with a new bigger shell in order to contain the new growing body. Likewise, brokenness is never a pleasant experience for anyone, yet it is the path that leads to spiritual empowerment, fruitfulness, blessing, and usefulness.
Our human nature acts as a hindrance to our spiritual fruitfulness. Thus, God adopts the channel of brokenness to set us free from that limitation. He uses both inward and outward circumstances to crush us so we can totally yield and depend upon Him instead of on ourselves. Sometimes, He uses human hands and unpleasant circumstances. How we willingly submit to Him will determine the extent of our fruitfulness. But to flee from this is to peg our spiritual development.
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise.”
Psalms 51:17 NKJV
According to our text, it was after Mary broke her precious alabaster jar of costly ointment and destroyed its future value that its fragrance filled the whole house (Mark 14:3 ). It was after Jesus broke the five loaves of bread that the bread was multiplied to feed the five thousand (Luke 9:16).
Martin Luther once remarked: “God creates out of nothing. Therefore, until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of Him.”
Brokeness is like the heat of the furnace that softens the steel of pride until it becomes something that can be formed and molded. It is like the plow of trial that breaks the hard parched ground of the human heart after it is first watered with tears, so the seed of the word can penetrate and take root. It is like the Potter’s hand that breaks the hard lump of man’s will, pound, squeeze, and stretch and repeat the process over and over to make it into a beautiful piece of colorful pottery.
Friends, don’t flee from brokenness less you delay or truncate your growth and blessings. Though painful, embrace it today.
Prayer points
1. Father, help me to embrace brokenness and never to flee from it in Jesus’ name.
2. Father, I submit to whatever You choose to use to break me, be it human discipline or circumstances, in Jesus’ name.
Today’s declarations
1. Though painful, yet will I not flee from brokenness because it’s the path to fruitfulness and blessings.
2. If I am proud, stony hearted, unyielding, temperamental, argumentative, and stubborn, then I need to be broken.
Contact: pastor@thf.org.ng