Week 2: Broken Hearts

1. BROKEN HEARTS

 

God doesn't want us to have hard hearts. In the Old and New Testament, God told the Israelites they had hard hearts and that they were rebellious, stiff-necked people (Exodus 32:9; Acts 7:51). 

 

When you plant a seed, there is life inside, but there is a hard shell around it. Before we came to Christ, the wounds and hurts in our lives built a hard shell around our hearts. That hard shell is sin—the old nature, Satan's nature—and it builds a wall between God and us. We must be broken for the fruit of the Spirit and the life of Christ to come forth. When that hard shell breaks open, the life of Christ flows through us, cleanses, and delivers us. But a hard heart blocks the Spirit.

 

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12:24 (ESV)

 

 

2. DON’T BREAK FOCUS

 

• When you serve God, you will experience pain, rejection, and unfair treatment (1 Peter 2:21; John 15:18). But don’t let the enemy take your focus off the Father and shift it to those painful experiences.

 

• If we fix our eyes on Jesus, we will walk in His Spirit and power, and He can use us to deliver souls in South Africa.

 

PRAY: Lord, we repent where we were focused on our pain and not on You. As we look to You, we pray that You will empower us to deliver souls in South Africa. Amen.

 

 

3. BROKEN

 

There is a difference between being religious and having a relationship with God. A religious person can be born again, read the Bible, pray, and not sin. They do all the right things in the eyes of the people and the Church but lack one thing: death to self. Their lives, priorities, and desires come first, not God's.

 

Religious people protect themselves when someone harms them, and they become hard-hearted. But Spirit people use their brokenness (from wounds, rejections, etc.) to become soft like Jesus. If we can't fellowship in His suffering, we can't have fellowship with Him.

 

“And I will give them one heart [a new heart] and I will put a new spirit within them; and I will take the stony [unnaturally hardened] heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh [sensitive and responsive to the touch of their God].” Ezekiel 11:19 (AMPC)

 

 

4. #PRAY4SA

 

Set time aside and pray that South Africa will see God’s power through our brokenness.