The Broken Among the Broken

My mother grew up during the Great Depression in a sharecropper’s family. I remember her saying that she did not think of herself as being poor because just about everyone she knew was in the same situation.

We live in a very broken world, but we have adjusted our eyes to the darkness and call it normal.

From a Christian view, we see the world as fallen from God’s perfect intention via the early story in Genesis when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and opened the door to sin, fallenness, and death.

If you happen to be a secularist, you may discount our Christian belief in how the world became “fallen”. However, if you are an honest observer you cannot deny the brokenness of our world regardless of your theology. The world is filled with sickness, death, pain, starvation, and dysfunctional dilemmas too numerous to catalog. The news media generates its income on reporting on our brokenness.

It is true, to some degree we all have brokenness. The Bible truthfully declares, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23 NKJV). We are the broken among the broken. Some have seen the light through the cracked-opened door while others are clamoring for the darkness.

In the beginning God spoke into a dark and chaotic world and said, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3 NKJV). He brought light and order to a situation that we can only speculate about in Genesis 1:1. The first couple disobeyed God and the creation came under the sway of sin and death; bringing about fallenness and brokenness.

The so-called normality of our lives is so permeated with this brokenness that we ignore the severity of it, or worst of all, celebrate it as our own.

Jesus, the Son of God stepped back into creation being the Creator among the creatures (His incarnation) and declared, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15 NKJV). His declaration of the kingdom was the reinstitution of God’s rule in this world as men surrendered to His lordship.

There are millions who have entered His Kingdom by submitting to Him. These citizens of the Kingdom emit the love of Christ by reaching out in love to those who are broken. Their offer of hope, love, and salvation is mostly shunned by those in the world. Those who are mired in their fallenness are blinded from the light and dance to the music of their own brokenness.

Those of the world, profess to be wise and enlightened, but they are foolish and are found in the stupor of their own futile minds. (Not my words but a loose paraphrase of Romans 1:21b NKJV, “but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”)

The solution to this brokenness is not in our universities or in the marbled halls of government. The best they can do is to place a bandage on the cancer. Someone has said, “A donkey (Democrat) or an elephant (Republican) will not save us, but only a Lamb—the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

The remedy? Submit to the King whose Kingdom is not of this world. The words of Jesus again, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15 NKJV).

To some, these words will ring true in their spirits and they will respond to the outreached hand of Jesus. To the rest, they will scoff and count these words gibberish. Eternity will make the final tally, calling some faithful and others doomed. It is not that Jesus rejects men, but rather men reject Jesus and His plan of redemption. You now have the choice.

Yours on the Journey,

Harry L. Whitt

Pathway Outreach Ministries