Each and every fruitful mission initiative starts with the same thing… a broken heart.
- Are you familiar with this ? The cycle of your eyes reopening to a new day of burden, of spiritual need around us, a new prayer of how He may use our integrity before Him in that reality today ? Is this the reality you see ?
God’s heart response.
The reality view to comprehend the compounding devastation of human life in a broken world comes from God. Seeing the tragedy resulting from being disconnected from our loving, gracious creator and redeemer prompts His heart and searing passion of mercy, compassion, and redemption to rise up in us as His children. It is a passion only of those who walk with Him, and are born of His Spirit. The acknowledgement that life is not as it should be, viewing that a person would invest their life unreservedly in this temporary and failing world with its myriads of false gods, awakens in us a sense of heat and urgency as we consider the impending eternal catastrophe as the ever nearing conclusion clears on the horizon.
This is God’s heart (1 Tim 2:3-4) expressed through us.
This is a day of opportunity, to work within the boundaries of His grace.
However dark the reality, the end has not yet come for so many individuals who make up the billions on hearts currently beating on our planet, and our God specialises in new beginnings. This is a day of such extensive opportunity we are so slow to seize. Whilst our wisdom to live is limited, His is infinite, and so it seems is His grace towards us and so many through the generosity he has extended towards us in Christ. So unfathomably big is the extent of His broken heart for the unreached and those yet to hear of His love, that it is not bound by geography, diversity of culture, or whatever background or history the hurting come from or with. So few realise what a day of opportunity this really is. Whilst we might be quick to see the limitations of who might come to into His family, He is not, and heaven’s grace is uncontainable.
This God teaches us that He gives, and gives, and gives again, also works in us a desire to see others live in the sunshine of His grace, have peace with heaven, and be reconnected with the one who satisfies eternally. This God of all wisdom is ready to lead us in His straight path the moment we acknowledge him in all our ways.
A broken heart has always been the pattern for fruitful living.
The biblical evidence for a broken heart being God’s way for his people in a broken world is mountainous. When the Lord Jesus looked at Jerusalem (Matthew 19:41-44) the tears encapsulated a city and an extensive history of brokenness.
When Jesus saw the crowds (Matthew 9:36) his whole being was moved in compassion, and so to it was with individuals (men, women, boys and girls) created in his image, and for those systems of humanity that operated without a broken heart or love and compassion for people or children (Mark 9:35-37,42).
He rebuked his own disciples (Mark 10:13-16) for their hard and small heartedness because it was the antithesis of all that God is. His broken heart was bigger. The Lord Jesus saw the under trodden of society, the ignored women treated as inferior creatures in a patriarchal society. As the prostitute broke down in worship before him (Luke 7:36-50) she was received openly despite her undignified introduction being driven by her shame, commonly known history, and tears falling on his feet. Grace transcends protocol. The scandal of instigating grace towards the tax collectors, (Mark 2:13-17) the poor and suffering (Luke 16:19-31), drunkards, and sinners… was not water which quenched His compassion under Hebraic pressure, but paraffin to fuel the flames of seeing such included within the inner circle, loved at the epicentre of His resplendent kingdom of transformational grace. The measure and boundary of brokenness Jesus responded to was unlimited, versatile, and adaptable.
What we must ask God to help us with.
Why then, if broken heartedness for the lost, and fire to see the broken hearted, spiritually needy and hurting in a broken world redeemed is so instinctive to our way in Christ, do we often display so little brokenness and apathy?
- Our desensitisation.
In our world of brokenness, cruelty, and distress, pervading scenes of suffering are at every turn to give us a daily exposure to things as they should not be. This is “normal” life in every city across the globe, wherever we travel and whoever we see, and we have bought the lie of the enemy that this is “ok”. Western hard-heartedness is even more pronounced. We can watch wall to wall 24/7 news coverage on magnificent 4k/8k UHD / HDR computers, tablets and TV screens from comfy sofas. No pixels of tragedy are missed. We see the famines, disasters, wars, injustice, countless millions under tyranny, countless billions serving false gods and then … flick channels to watch a made up drama, go out to the supermarket, mall, football stadium and remain utterly compartmentalised into our own bubble of self service. In a world of S “I” N, we fail to notice billions of broken lives because our modus operandi / auto reset mode is to live for number one, and serve the spirit of our age in individualism.
Part of the nub of this is to understand that His grace is bigger than us, that there is a community and global dynamic to it, to view the scope of God’s grace as BIGGER. You and i need a radical , daily, dose of this reality from God’s perspective. Submissively opening His word to see His world is so key. Hungering for his perspective however is not without a comfort warning if done unconditionally, it demands a personal comittment in response.
Notice the immediacy of broken heartedness. It is non negotiable when we walk with God’s priorities. See the deep-rooted nature of it. Yes, feelings aren’t enough on their own, things have to be resolved in prayer and doing something, but that something did depend on a penetrating grief stricken response which is not swiftly wiped away or skirted around.
God’s grief is not paralysing, but like Christ in the humility of incarnation, results in frontier servant activity. Let him be Lord of your life, in control of all of you. May He and His love be your sense of dignity and purpose, your emotions, your whole worldview. Don’t watch the news for entertainment, let the brakes off and watch it with a prayerful heart. Find time, make time, prioritise time, to cry for others and not just yourself. See individuals as creatures of the King and put on your redemption specs as you look at the world, the country, city, rural village, street, road, house, family, child, marriage, the depressed, the suicidal, the confused teenager, the terminally ill, the suffering, the abused … to see His grace though the tears.
Whilst we are called to live at peace as we are able with those around us (Romans 12:18) we are not called to spiritual mediocrity or the propagation of dead religion. If you are stuck in a spiritual community which forbids or dampens a broken heart, skirting a sense of gospel urgency and reality…prayerfully consider if your time, energies, emotions, gifts, and worship would be better invested in a community context less comfortable (or neat), but more fruitful.
Maybe your tears are for those hard hearted who call themselves believers around you in such a context? However, we must consider at what point we are wasting our stewardship on those who are trampling on grace (Matthew 7:6). We have but one life, and eternity very soon. Our priority tears must be for the lost and unreached. Tears now will soon give way to rejoicing, the biblical pattern of tears surrendered to God is seasonal (Psalm 30:5). When we see the global gathering of the grace bought, then our tears will have been contained (Psalm 56:8) by His Lordship and victory , finalised once and for all time by his own tender relational hand (Revelation 21:4). Let him deal with your tears for broken people and a fallen world according to His priorities and purposes (Romans 8:18-19, 26-27). Fit in with his passions, find people who do, and treasure them as friends and warriors of the kingdom.
- Tunnel vision for our own life, church and situation.
The great tragedy of many of us is that we (the very ones who have received his transformational grace) have become selfishly content with that grace. We’ve known and become so familiar with His radical grace in a world of individualism that we’ve started to interpret it as appropriate or even deserved.
Let’s get real, self care and self centricity are very different.
It is possible that for some of us our hard heartedness comes from a place of self protection, that our broken world is too much to bear. We are not the Messiah, and our capacity for the complete brokenness of our world is something only He can take the weight of in totality. We do need to take self care steps by taking every thought captive to Him and His victory.
However, (and it is a big caveat)… for most of us if we are honest, our hard-heartedness is far more often not due to lack of capacity but lack of intent for our comfort to be disturbed. Many brothers and sisters in Christ, many churches have reached a place of equilibrium, where life is lived in the neatness of a full church, a polished program, a tried pattern and contained (even controlled) community or environment. This is especially so if life for believers has been comfortable in a context but now they are trying to protect a comfort zone which is under attack. In such situations church can be seen as oasis spiritual spa therapy, not boot camp to be recharged for a week/ season of frontier mission.
Being impenetrably hard towards others who are broken and spiritually in need behind a polite veneer however “churchified” our diction and presentation is still empty of God. Change of attitude, to be unsettled for further inclusion of the messed up, can come to those who know His grace and should come in growing measure, as we explore how wide such grace and love is (Eph 1:18). To not want to see this, to hide our eyes and hearts from His impact on our priorities and comfort, to be impenetrable and immovable, never desiring to be in an uncomfortable place surrounded by gospel need and be deeply in pain, is dead orthodoxy, dead religion, dead church. It knows and shows nothing of personal and relational knowledge of the Christ who came.
The monochrome and monocultural compassion of Jonah had reached its limit. He thought he had found his happy place in God’s Ghetto. Yet there was no joy and there never will be for those who limit his heart, and assume the synchronistic view that this world is for us, or even a self centric view of His kingdom.
in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”
Jonah 4:11
What do we pray for ?
Whoever we look at in History that God has used in mission and lives of grace expressed, it has come from a broken heart for the plight of those who don’t yet know him and the uncontainable privilege that we do. Whether it is Amy Charmichael praying …
"O for a passionate passion for souls ,
O for the love that loves unto death ,
O for the fire that burns !
O for the pure prayer - power that prevails ,
That pours itself out for the lost !
Victorious prayer in the Conquerors Name ,
O for a PENTECOST !
Or my local hero Richard Baxter -
wanting to redeem the years the locusts had eaten…
"With what love and compassion did he beseech me! and yet I did but make a jest of it. How oft did he convince me! and yet I stifled all these convictions."
In the UK the post covid church is in an interesting season. Some churches have seen accelerated decline which has been subtle as people have been slow to rejoin the army of kingdom industry for Christ. I get calls from those who say their church has become somewhat lethargic, lower in attendance at prayer, less generous in finance and risk / faith averse, somewhat more concerned by what performances look like online than what our hearts look like before God. On the other hand I speak to people whose churches are bulging with hurting people who have come through warm spaces, coffee friendship, children and youth activities. One pastor said “the heart and conviction problems were there before, covid just made it harder to interact with those whose hearts were in a bad place”. I think he was right, the heart of the matter is always the matter of the heart. So let’s address our own first.
That He would keep our hearts soft to marvel at what He has done for us. That God would keep us in awe and wonder of how amazing the reality of His grace is. It is all of grace. This is the only motivation needed for mission. Compassion and broken heartedness for the lost is our foundation. The attitude of gratitude is what switches on the afterburners to serve his kingdom and not our own.-
That God would keep help us be outward bound and not stuck introspectively with grace.
our inner self is being renewed day by day.
2 Cor 4:16
Praying for you as I pray for myself:
Lord help us to press on with grace, loving your blood bought people, active in seeing the unreached reached.
Not a casual phrase but considered…
The Lord bless your heart (as you read).
The Lord bless your tears (as you hear His word and respond to His heart).
The Lord move you to prayer, with a burden weightier than you can carry, as He helps you to take it to the one who can.
The Lord bless your going, to make disciples who make disciples.
The Lord bless your travel to the unreached and persecuted in frontier contexts, where many gods do many people no good.
The Lord bless your solitary isolation, as you pray for those who go*, and those they go to. May His heart work in us and through us, for His unmatchable glory,
AMEN
*(NB If you would like to be more informed on such situations… I have some great friends who would really appreciate your prayer and intercession).
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