Rescued

Stepping away from Hebrews this month to direct your attention to our training this Saturday. You can find information on it at edmondcr.com/events. 

Christian discipleship is the product of the healthy church and includes “four parts”—brokenness, education, spiritual formation, accountability—the source of discipleship is the Trinity. While this terminology is not flashy or stylistic, it replicates much of what we live through in recovery. You can find an interaction with all four parts and the Trinity here edmondcr.com/discipleship. On Saturday we will be talking about the first part, brokenness. 

Here is an excerpt of our lesson: 

Brokenness equals “Poor in Spirit.” 

The way to understand “Brokenness” is by way of the biblical teaching on “poor in Spirit.” 

“Discipleship of Jesus begins with the poor, with being poor, with recognizing one’s own poverty. The First Beatitude…describes the first characteristic of discipleship. Those who are not poor, who have not recognized their poverty before God, like those who cling to the illusion of their adult independence and control of their own destiny, have still to make a beginning on the pathway of discipleship. The Kingdom of God is for the poor. Only the poor enjoy its blessing. Only those who have given up trying to find their significance in what lies within their own power and have learned to live out of the resources of God’s Spirit have discovered the blessing of God’s rule.” – J. D. G. Dunn 

We can begin to understand brokenness by studying the first Beatitude in the Sermon on the Mount.  

Matthew 5:3 (CSB)  

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.  

The broken (spiritually poor) are rescuable. The reason is that the spiritually poor are rescuable is because they have relinquished their perception of control. People who have power, or perceive they have power, will often use it to guard themselves, control their lives on their own terms, and seek more power. They are people who live their lives on their own terms rather than willingly receive divine wisdom and apply it to their way of life. The physically and spiritually poor have no power, they have nothing to fall back on. The spiritually poor are limited and therefore willing to take what is offered. The people who are poor in spirit understand their own best efforts have not helped improve their life circumstances and they are open to willingly receive wisdom from a power greater than themselves, Jesus Christ.