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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Brokenhearted

As I sit here in the solitutude of this place, tears threaten to well up in my eyes once again. I have so much I want to say yet no idea how to possibly articulate every word.

For months now I have sensed God's spirit blowing revival into my life. Now don't get me wrong, I am crazy in love with Jesus and have been for many years. I've been described as a girl who oozes Jesus. Who is passionate about the things of God. But so often in my pursuit of the Living God, I have shifted my focus off of Him and back onto myself.

A few days ago during my prayer time I heard the Holy Spirit whisper, and His message was so utterly clear. And instantly I knew...

"I have made an idol out of me."

ME.

As much as I desire to bring glory and honor to God, I confess that so often my world spins around my wants, my needs, and my desires. I can easily become my own idol.

In that moment, I experienced an epiphany of sorts and realized the depth of my selfish sin nature in a way I never had before.

And I was truly brokenhearted.

I think so often as Christians we spend a lot of time talking about how we need to get serious about our sin. We set up checklists of do's and don'ts in an effort to please God. We forget that sin is simply broken fellowship with God and every time we choose to disconnect from our Maker we invite sin to take up residence in our lives and establish a foothold. But God does not just ask us to take our sin seriously, He asks us to be brokenhearted over it.

Have you ever really considered what it means that our sin grieves the Holy Spirit?

Ephesians 4:30 says "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption."

Grieve comes from the Greek word lypeō meaning to distress, to be sad, to cause grief, to be in heaviness, to make sorry.

Can you imagine God's utter remorse, His distress, His heaviness of Spirit when we willingly choose our sin over His righteousness? When we choose to reject the completed work of Jesus' death on the cross and refuse to walk in the promises of His Word that proclaim that sin has no power in our lives (Romans 6:6-8)?

Today my prayer is that as a body of believers we would become brokenhearted over our sin. That we would plug back into our only source of power and surrender our lives to Christ moment by moment. May the Spirit of God's conviction fall so heavily on our hearts that we will be distressed enough to leave our old man behind once and for all and walk victoriously in the newness of Christ.

5 comments:

Debbie said...

Stephanie, This is a beautiful post. I think if we asked the Lord, we would all receive a similar revelation. Thank you for the wake up call.
Debbie

Stephanie Garneau said...

Debbie, your teachable spirit is refreshing and very pleasing to the Lord. Are you going to She Speaks this year? Let me know! I would love to catch up with you and see how you are doing! I fly in on Thursday.

Hester's Heart said...

Stephanie, Bless you sweet sister. Your heart is evident in your love for God. Thank you for this reminder. I love you and am soooooo looking forward to seeing you next week!! Press on dear one,

Jess said...

Hi Stephanie,
I just "found" your blog on the Next Step email you sent!
How I appreciate your heart!
And your blog title caught my eye because my blog is www.jewelsforthejourney.blogspot.com
Tell me more about the GEMS ministry.
Blessings to you and yours,
Jess

Stephanie Garneau said...

Hi Jess! So glad to meet you. For more info about GEMS, click on the ministry button above or visit the website at www.thegemsministry.com.

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