Crisis Response – May 16, 2024 – JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Psalms 51:17

Much talk of offerings being in the form of money, and just money. We’ve tried to fight that mentality by continuously sharing, every opportunity that we get, that our giving and our offering is not limited to our money and our material wealth, but also in the form of our time and our effort.

Just last Sunday we also shared that one great way for us to give is to give by way of prayer. We pointed out the story in Acts, of Peter saying to the lame beggar that he had no silver or gold to give him, but by way of prayer he told him to rise and walk in the name of Jesus.

So we’re pretty squared away in emphasizing how we can give in all these ways… but here I’m reminded that even at the worst of times, we can give and offer God our broken spirit. The Psalmist says that God does not despise, and I assume freely welcomes a broken and contrite heart just as He would receive any other offering.

To me, here and now, considering all I’m going through – all I’m willing to share here, and all I’m keeping to myself – it feels reassuring in a way, that we not only to cast all our burdens and anxieties to Christ as we also always preach (basing from 1 Peter 5:7)… we can fully entrust the heart that bears the burdens and anxieties as well.

Usually during these times I’d tell y’all about how I would… ‘enjoy’ taking a random drive with the windows up while I go ahead and scream out all my frustrations and all that’s pissing me off and otherwise shaking me, but for some reason the way I choose to cope these recent days is to keep it in and sort of control my release by way of writing.

And in my study, again, I’m reminded that there’s another way – not just by lifting up the issue, or how we feel about the issue, or what we know about the issue that we can lift up to God, calling out to Him for help… This Psalm reminds me that we lift our entire heart up, as if to fully trust Him with all we know AND all we don’t know, and all we can express as well as the feelings we have in us that we don’t have the words for.

And we aren’t just presenting it to Him as a burden… No, apparently even our broken hearts, our frustrated spirits are presented to Him as worship.

With that in mind and heart, this Scripture can be appreciated from another light:

Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever.

Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.

Psalms 145:2-3

Every day, the Psalmist says – Every day, whether the day be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ according to our minds, and/or according to how the world would ‘measure’ it – Every day we have cause to bless the Lord. Every day we exist in this hopeless world, every day that our hearts are either full or barely functioning, every day that our spirits are high or our souls are cast down – Every day, we have reason to praise His name, as we would even in the end of time and beyond.

Why? It’s not a matter of how we feel or what we’re going through, but we praise because of the unsearchable greatness of our God. We may praise with our issues and problems in mind, but in the end, we will always be reminded of how God, in all His greatness, is far greater.

We will always have cause to praise the Lord, because every time we do, we’re reminded of His greatness, and how it is actually more present that the most pressing of issues we may be experiencing at any given moment. We say ‘Halleluyah’ in our plights, condemnations and afflictions, if only to proclaim whom we have, and how He is greater.

We speak the praises of our Lord, the Commander of the Armies of the Heavens; We speak His praises before our conflicts, as David spoke to Goliath, shortly before he took the giant down.

We speak thanksgiving to Christ, whom the winds and the waves obey; We give thanks to Him before all our afflictions, as Christ spoke to the storm, and as it stopped instantly.

My broken and discouraged heart speaks today, of the praises of the Lord, for not only is He great, but He is good:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,

because the LORD has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor;

he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

to proclaim the year of the LORD’S favor,

and the day of vengeance of our God;

to comfort all who mourn;

to grant to those who mourn in Zion—

to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;

that they may be called oaks of righteousness,

the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.

Isaiah 61:1-3

Not only is God great, but He is good. He brings good news to me when I am poor. He keeps me together when I am brokenhearted. He proclaims liberty to me when I am captured, and He opens the doors when I am bound.

God is good. He comforts me when I mourn, giving me a ‘beautiful headdress instead of ashes’, and ‘the oil of gladness instead of mourning’. By Christ’s finished work I am clothed, here and now, with ‘the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit’… all, that in my salvation, ‘He may be glorified’.

The verses we pulled up here today were shared by WorshipTogether.com; According to them, these served as Scripture References for ‘Jesus, I Need You’ by Hillsong Worship, whose chorus and bridge goes as follows:

Jesus I need You

Every moment I need You

Hear now this grace bought heart sing out

Your praise forever

Remember love

Remember mercy

Christ before me

Christ behind me

Your loving kindness

Has never failed me

Christ before me

Christ behind me