Broken Heartedness

Part 2 of 25 – Broken Heartedness

First off, I want to welcome you back to the blog, and thank you for your commitment in keeping up with me while I delve into the Bible a little deeper than I normally do. This series is not my personal study (where I get out the back-hoe and really dig deep), but it’s not for fun either. I felt called to do this by God so He obviously wants me to get something extraordinary out of it! So thank you for popping in to read some more!

Let’s start out the same way we did last time, by defining what exactly “broken heartedness” is! Using my Microsoft Word dictionary again, we see that it means “grief stricken” or “Extremely sad due to great disappointment”.

In the context of the scripture I will show you, this specific type of broken heartedness is good. I know what you’re asking – “What? How can broken heartedness be a good thing?” The answer lies in the Hebrew Scriptures. However, out of Christian honesty I must confess I do NOT speak Hebrew, nor do I read it either so please bear with me while I simply get a smidge of information from my ESV Study Bible later on in this post.

Our scripture comes out of Psalm 34:18-19 which says – “¹⁸The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.¹⁹Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” ESV

What amazing verses! When there’s so much in a verse or two that it would take me a while to understand or comprehend, I like to say it has a lot of “meat”. When something has a lot of meat, it will take a while to stomach! To me, these verses of scripture have a lot of meat.

Let’s start where it says brokenhearted and crushed in spirit. Immediately, when we look at those words, we think of pain, or something bad that has caused us to feel that way. However, when those words are translated from the Hebrew Scriptures, we begin to recognize that they refer to the pride and stubbornness in ones heart being humbled. So we see that when the Lord cares for his faithful ones, he desires for you to be humbled, and brought before him completely naked and stripped of every fleshly desire within your mortal body. Psalm 51:17 says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” ESV. The person who gives himself or herself fully to the Lord is the one who can genuinely worship the gracious God of the covenant!

Verse 19 says “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” I bet you’re asking yourself “Why do the righteous experience distress?” The answer is because of God’s love. He makes us experience hardships and troubled times because He wants to test us and see if we will turn to Him! 2 Timothy 3:12 says that everyone who desires to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted… We can’t leave that out when we are bringing someone to Christ. I think a lot of times we might insinuate an easy life full of happiness when we are speaking to someone about the gospel. It’s not supposed to be like fine print. This information should be on the forefront of our teaching! Happiness will only come when we get to Heaven. Meanwhile, we are here on this earth that is controlled by the devil, and we must daily pick up our cross, follow Christ, give our all to God, and put on His armor! If we lack in anything, ANYTHING at all, we give the devil a foothold to enter in. This cannot happen. Living a Christ-like life is a daily battle, not a walk in the park. Yes, you will experience hardships and trials, BUT we must look to the only one sure hope we have; that we will someday spend our time with Jesus in Heaven. The latter half of verse 19 says the Lord will deliver us out of distress. Indeed, He will! However, for now we must hold down the fort, and recruit more soldiers. Our God is a jealous God, and He desires you to make disciples of all nations!

It would behoove us to read on in the chapter that we might understand what is going on at the other end of the spectrum. Verse 21 says, “Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.” Here we see that affliction actually overcomes the unrighteous people. Previously, God had saved us from this affliction. Who will reach out to the ones who love their sin? No one. They are left to live in eternal condemnation where every millisecond is spent in utter chaotic Hell. This is not meant to be taken lightly. In fact, Jesus spoke more on Hell in the Bible then He did on Heaven. Obviously He wants us to understand it. It’s the same for sin; He spoke a lot more on sin, than He did on grace. Jesus really desires for us to understand this! He wants you to be prepared for when the devil knocks at your door. He’s knocking right now, every second of every day. Unless we keep our eyes fixed on Christ, then he will be able to walk in unnoticed.

Verse 20 says, “He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.” I myself was wondering, “Why was that thrown in there?” Well, it just so happens that this is more of a prophecy than it is anything else. In John 19, Jesus side is pierced with the spear. The guards were asked to break the legs of those to be crucified, but when they saw that Jesus was already dead, they left his legs alone, and only pierced his side, fulfilling the scripture.

Rereading verse 18, we see that the Lord is near to us. How does that make you feel? The one who created all things, you and I alike, draws near to us so that he might rescue us from any afflictions. What an awesome God. We serve the only living God you know… To quote G.B. Hardy – “Here is the complete record: Confucius’ tomb: occupied, Buddha’s tomb: occupied, Mohammad’s tomb: occupied, Jesus’ tomb: EMPTY.” Next weeks topic will cover death and it’s relationship with our Christian lifestyle. Thank you so much for reading this post and continuing with me in this 25-week study… I pray your relationship with our Father is deepened, and you know Him more and more. Grace and peace to you always.

L. R. Hughes