Broken Treasures

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Tracie Mark

Did you know that the life of faith begins with a confession of bankruptcy? In order to accept our Savior, we must accept our need. We cannot have His righteousness without denying our own; we cannot have His holiness without confessing our sin; and we cannot receive His redemption without owning up to our bondage. We are completely bankrupt before Him, and we are fools if we don’t know it.

Did you know that the beauty of the cross is its ugliness? God left us no aesthetic religion to idolize, no self-effort to perfect (Tracie!!), no law to fulfill. He completely undid us, by doing it ALL Himself.

The light finally came on in my “works mentality” brain that the way to become godly is not to try to become godly. It’s to declare my ungodliness and cast its cost on Him. The way to become pure is not to try to be pure, but to declare my impurity and ask for the heart of God. The way to live is not to seek life, it is to die and let Jesus live in my place. I thought the wisdom of God would be able to make me a better person….through works, service, intellect, philosophies, religion, etc. But in His wisdom, Jesus did not come to make me better…He came to do away with the old entirely and to birth something new in me. When I finally took hold of that, by embracing that old, ugly, ignoble cross…newness finally came.

The other lesson that I’ve learned from the cross was this: Never despise the humble appearance of God’s plan. Make no mistake… the cross was not at first gilded with gold to adorn our steeples and necklines. It was a place of disgrace. It was the symbol of death. It was brutal, ugly, horrid and shameful. But it was God’s way! From the foundations of this world, He ordained that His priceless treasure be dressed in very plain clothes. There was a time that I was tempted to avoid the very unattractive path God had shown me that He had planned for me. It was completely the opposite direction from where I thought He was taking me. It was not the way I wanted to go…it looked long, hard and ugly. That’s when I remembered the cross. Jesus is always my reminder that priceless treasures are broken vessels. The more broken I become, the more valuable I am to My Savior.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55: 8-9

My friends, trust God’s plan for you is good…even if it looks ugly. If you can’t see His hand, trust His heart…and go. A blessing ALWAYS follows obedience!