From HotAir comes this most eloquent and sobering testimony to the cost of freedom. The picture below says it all, but Ed’s write up tells of the quality of the life that was sacrificed. It was indeed high.
“Let no man rent asunder” we are told, but it happens all the time. May all the broken hearts in this broken world find comfort and strength in the Lord’s love and grace, looking to His great sacrifice for us, and the unsearchable promises it secured, for strength to carry on, face life’s ongoing challenges, and do the right thing.
This is the best comment I can make on this – it is beyond words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnBQbFB0x6U&feature=related
Doreen, I hope you get this reply, because that video is obscuring the Reply link so I have to start a new thread.
That song is one of my all time favorites. I’ve performed it publicly several times, but I’ve sung it to the Lord countless times. It runs deep.
I’ve been pondering the brokenheartedness of the world, as seen in this post and the Smith Wigglesworth post, and I’ve seen that when we are broken, IF we humble ourselves under His mighty hand, His power will come in in ways it could not have before. It’s like Paul telling the Thessalonians that they shouldn’t grieve as if they had no hope, only deeper. I think of Martin Luther laying face down on the floor on the eve of his great declaration of conscience, repeating over and over, “I am Yours; save me”.
Time and again I’ve thought, this is it, end of the line; there couldn’t possibly be a way forward. But God simply will not quit on us, and insists on bringing us over to the victory side. If we will submit and trust, even in our brokenness, He will sustain us and use our ordeals as His refining fire, and when we are done He will pour us forth as gold.
But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that the extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.
We are experiencing trouble on every side, but are not crushed; we are perplexed, but not driven to despair;
we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are knocked down, but not destroyed,
always carrying around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our body.
For we who are alive are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our mortal body.
As a result, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
But since we have the same spirit of faith as that shown in what has been written, “I believed; therefore I spoke,” we also believe, therefore we also speak.
We do so because we know that the one who raised up Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus and will bring us with you into his presence.
For all these things are for your sake, so that the grace that is including more and more people may cause thanksgiving to increase to the glory of God.
Therefore we do not despair, but even if our physical body is wearing away, our inner person is being renewed day by day.
For our momentary, light suffering is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison
because we are not looking at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen. For what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.
– 2Cor 4:7-18
Paul, the response came in fine.
Speaking of brokenness triggered this memory:
He took the loaves and fish and He “blessed and He broke them” and gave it to the disciples to feed the crowds.
The Night He was betrayed He “blessed and He broke” the Bread and wine and gave them to His disciples.
The Lord always ‘blesses us, before He breaks us’ and send us out to feed His lambs or be food for the lambs; ie. our lives, lived purely, can be spiritual food for the souls of others.
blessings
d