Spiritual Brokenness

Christians are encouraged to heed the words of Jesus by embracing the practice of dying to self as the key to spiritual fruitfulness.

This book is not a before-and-after story. Our culture treats suffering like a problem to fix, a blight to hide, or the sad start of a transformation story. We silently, secretly wither under the pressure of living as though suffering is a predicament we can avoid or annihilate by working hard enough or having enough faith. When your prayers for healing haven't been answered, the fog of depression isn't lifting, your marriage is ending in divorce, or grief won't go away, it's easy to feel you've failed God and, worse, he's failed you. If God loves us, why does he allow us to hurt? Over a decade ago chronic illness plunged therapist and writer K.J. Ramsey straight into this paradox. Before her illness, faith made sense. But when pain came and never left, K.J. had to find a way across the widening canyon that seemed to separate God's goodness from her excruciating circumstances. She wanted to conquer suffering. Instead, she encountered the God who chose it. She wanted to make pain past-tense. Instead, God invited her into a bigger story. This Too Shall Last offers an antidote to our cultural idolatry of effort and ease. Through personal story and insights from neuroscience and theology, Ramsey invites us to let our tears become lenses of the wonder that before God ever rescues us, he stands in solidarity with us. We are all mid-story in circumstances we did not choose, wondering when our hard things will end and where grace will come if they don’t. We don't need to make suffering a before-and-after story. Together we can encounter the grace that enters the middle of our stories, where living with suffering that lingers means receiving God's presence that lasts.

Every great movement of God is preceded by a season of humility and repentance and a time of tearing down walls, of getting honest with God and others about your true spiritual condition.It may be hard. It may hurt. But in the end, God will use your brokenness to restore your 'first love' for Jesus, rekindle your spiritual fire, reconcile your relationships, and repair your life.A richer, deeper, more God-filled life is waiting for you. And it all begins with Brokenness.The Revive Our Hearts Trilogy - Now in Paperback!This bestselling series by Nancy Leigh DeMoss has sold well over 80,000 copies! All three titles now include study questions at the end of each chapter, making them ideal for personal or small group study.

Explores biblical spirituality and the challenging gifts of brokenness.

When Jesus asked the lame man at the pool of Siloam if he wanted to be whole, his question embodied the entirety of God's promise. While representative of the ideal state of physical health, wholeness in minds, body and spirit is also the foundation of God's health promise. In order to fully embrace this phenomenon, it is necessary to understand its meaning. This book engages the reader in easy-to understand spiritual and medical concepts, while systematically outlining wholeness in five succinct chapters. Each chapter builds upon the succeeding one and culminates with the reader celebrating God's promise of prospering in health. This book speaks to individuals through God's word, promotes personal reflections as the truth of the word unfolds and awakens a spirit of "blessed assurance" in the validity of God promises. Read it and be blessed.

“BROKENNESS,” by Professor Fomum, is a real classic for walking the Christian life with total abandonment to the Lord. After the new birth, a man’s spirituality is not measured by his capacity to preach great sermons, to cast out demons, or to heal the sick. Such capacities could be the manifestation of spiritual gifts, which are received from God, regardless of who the person is. Such a person may • be totally unrecognizable at the slightest provocation, • be selfish and self-centred, • love sin, • hide or blame others for his mistakes and failures, • get worried when faced with the least problem, and act before he has prayed about it, • etc. This talks of an unbroken life in which, unfortunately, most believers who truly confess the name of the Lord, find themselves several years after conversion. The purpose of God in the new creation is to produce people who attain spiritual maturity, by quickly attaining the stature of broken men and women. God does it through the cross, to break and destroy the natural man and, by the work of the Holy Spirit, to build the character of Christ in the believer. Brokenness therefore depends on the degree to which a person has allowed the cross and the Holy Spirit to work in him. Taking Jacob’s life as a basis, the author shows how one can go from the state of the natural man (unconverted) to that of a carnal believer (unbroken), then to that of a spiritual believer (broken); that is, a life in which the believer belongs totally to the Lord, allows free access to God in the minutest details of his life, no longer presents any obstacle to God. Read this book. It will challenge you and help you to make progress on the pathway of brokenness, to such an extent that you will soon be able to confess with apostle Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

The American Association of Christian Counselors and Tyndale House Publishers are committed to ministering to the spiritual needs of people. This book is part of the professional series that offers counselors the latest techniques, theory, and general information that is vital to their work. While many books have tried to integrate theology and psychology, this book takes another step and explores the importance of the spiritual disciplines in psychotherapy, helping counselors to integrate the biblical principles of forgiveness, redemption, restitution, prayer, and worship into their counseling techniques. Since its first publication in 1996, this book has quickly become a contemporary classic—a go-to handbook for integrating what we know is true from the disciplines of theology and psychology and how that impacts your daily walk with God. This book will help you integrate spiritual disciplines—such as prayer, Scripture reading, confession—into your own life and into counseling others. Mark R. McMinn, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at Wheaton College Graduate School in Wheaton, Illinois, where he directs and teaches in the Doctor of Psychology program. A diplomate in Clinical Psychology of the American Board of Professional Psychology, McMinn has thirteen years of postdoctoral experience in counseling, psychotherapy, and psychological testing. McMinn is the author of Making the Best of Stress: How Life's Hassles Can Form the Fruit of the Spirit; The Jekyll/Hyde Syndrome: Controlling Inner Conflict through Authentic Living; Cognitive Therapy Techniques in Christian Counseling; and Christians in the Crossfire (written with James D. Foster). He and his wife, Lisa, have three daughters.