Ministered by the Master

 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed.  When they heard about all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. – Mark 3:7-8 (NIV)

Jesus was oftentimes called the Master.  The Master healed people.  The Master helped people.  He was the Master.

For he had healed many,
so that those with diseases
were pushing forward to touch him.
– Mark 3:10 (NIV)

He ministered as the Master.  He taught and touched people.  He drew a crowd even when He was trying to withdraw.

When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. – Mark 5:21 (NIV)

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For Any Who Have Felt Broken into Pieces

Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in trouble: mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly. – Psalm 31:9 (KJV)

My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes. – Psalm 6:7 (NIV)

 
Many people have asked me why I wrote my inspirational book of poetry Broken Pieces.  I can’t help but smile because it is dear to my heart.  I was down.  I was down and reading both Jeremiah and Psalms intensely as my daily devotion.  I was starting to think that the Word was even getting me down as I read the weeping prophet and David’s pleas for God to not turn His face from him and to incline His ear to him.  That’s when it hit me.
 

God does not leave us helpless.  That is especially comforting for those of us who reside on this side of the cross.  He offers us the Comforter, His Holy Spirit.  We have God dwelling within us.  He knows our moans and groans as well as what they truly mean to us.  He is with us.  We are not without comfort when we have the Helper.
 
I had to share it.  I could not keep such a blessing to myself.  I found poetic inspiration and let it spill onto the page.  I felt the Spirit driving me to write and complete Broken Pieces as a testimony of all that God can do with our broken pieces.  We are all right as long as we stay in the clutches of the Potter’s hands.
 
In His Hands
A poem from Broken Pieces by Bruce Jackson

In His hands,

I am but clay

At the mercy of the Master’s touch.

As He crafts me into His desire,

He shapes and molds me to His liking.

He forms me with His hands

And designs me as His workmanship.

He knows the flaws of my very existence.

He cuts away that which is useless.

He creates in me a clean heart

And purifies me through the fire,

Testing how well I will hold together.

He names me and makes me a new creation.

He touches me with His breath

And I live.

I am His masterpiece in the making.

I am but clay in His hands.

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For Those of Us with Issues Too Big to Handle Ourselves

⁴³ And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. ⁴⁴She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. ⁴⁵“Who touched me?” Jesus asked.  When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.” ⁴⁶But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”⁴⁷ Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. – Luke 8:43-47 (NIV)

²⁵ And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. ²⁶ She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. ²⁷ When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, ²⁸ because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” ²⁹ Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.  – Mark 5:25-29 (NIV)

²⁰ Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. ²¹She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” ²² Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment. – Matthew 9:20-22 (NIV)

This woman was subjected to years of agony without remedy.  She suffered for years without any help.  No matter what she tried to do for herself, she got no better and her health continued to drift in a spiral downturn.  Under the care of her doctors, the woman only grew worse, not better.  She was in a bad situation.  She was in the need of a healing.

The woman heard about Jesus somehow.  Maybe someone told her.  Maybe she overheard someone else talking about Him.  It could be that she got word about Jesus from those who had seen, heard or followed Him while in some other area of the region. 

She heard about Jesus and made her way to Jesus.  She forced her way into His presence.  He worked her way to get near to Him.  The woman fought her way through the thick of the crowd, slipping in her and ducking out there, just to extend her frail hand to swipe His garment a little bit. 

As sickly as she was, she was able to squeeze her hand between those closest to Jesus.  She might have reached between Peter and John or James and Andrew, but she stretched out her hand and touched His garment.  She reached out to Jesus in faith.  She sought her healing through the Lamb of God who caused the blind to see and the dead to rise again.  She reached out to Him, seeking His power to somehow heal her hurting body.

When she touched the edge of His robe, she was healed.  She was freed from her pain and suffering.   She found deliverance from the horrors of her poor health.  The Lord made her whole by the power that escaped from within Him.  He healed her in an instant. 

He changed her without ever having to ask her whether she had health insurance or her family medical history.  Jesus did not investigate her background information or verify her proof of residency before He could see her.  His disciples did require a co-payment or an at-the-door offering with the caveat of “Or, whatever you can give” added on as a trailer behind their request for monetary compensation.  That’s not how it went down.  That’s not what went on.

Jesus can heal us without anything else to get in the way.  He can make us whole.  He can fix us where we need fixing the most.  He can make us better.We do not have to live with the dread of defeat.  We do not have live in such agony and torture.  All we have to do is seek Him out and reach out for Him.  He offers us a healing that will cause all of what ails us to cease and provide us with peace and rest.

Let Jesus have all of your troubles and leave them in His hands.  Trust Him with all of your faith to deal with your issues.  He can do more with them than we ever could.  Let Him handle it.

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Beyond Being Broken

12	Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon:
13	therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.
14	And he shall break it as the breaking of the potters’ vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit. –Isaiah 30:12-14 (KJV)

Being broken is a circumstantial condition.  We feel broken due to the culmination of our circumstances.  Based on what has transpired, we feel a sense of brokenness.  We even take on the state of brokenness by taking personal ownership of living shattered and fragmented lives as badges of our broken lives of torment and terror.  We live as broken men and women.

I have been forgotten like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. – Psalm 31:12 (ESV)

We do not have to live that way.

You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. – Psalm 139:3 (NIV)

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. – Psalm 34:18 (NIV)

He brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and broke away their chains. – Psalm 107:14 (NIV)

O LORD, truly I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant; you have freed me from my chains. – Psalm 116:16 (NIV)

He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds. – Psalm 147:3 (NLT)

I wrote Broken Pieces out of my own agony and pain.  As I look back at it, I realized that what I penned in pain was not just for my own sake.  I published this collection and Lamentations in the Storm as I wandered through a deep fog of misery and melancholy much like Broken Pieces.  Both poetic works reveal that we do not have to live broken lives once god has set us free.  These poems and prayers express the depth of life in despair and how faith can carry you through in order to endure through life’s trials.

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Healed and Helped

⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” ⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” ⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.- John 5:6-8 (NIV)

Oral Roberts is quoted as sharing how Jesus desires to heal the whole person, not just the part that is ailing them.  Jesus asked the man who laid among many invalids such as the blind and lame did he want to be made well.  He did not ask if the man wanted to get his feet healed or to get help moving into the pool as the angel troubled the water.  No, Jesus asked the man about his desire to be made whole.  Jesus asks this of the lame man by the pool.  The lame man lacked initiative to the point where he did not ask anything of Jesus.  When asked by Jesus, he just went into his sob story about not having anyone to push him into the pool.

Jesus did not ask that.

Despite the man’s response, Jesus healed him.  Jesus helped him.  Jesus performed a miracle in the midst of the lame and the sick.  He did so for this man and commanded him to do something for himself, too.

Jesus expects the same of you.  He wants you to get up off your duff and do something.  He’s not healing you from your wounds for your own good.  He’s not helping you just for the sake of helping you.  I have said it before and I will say it again: God wants something for us and He wants something from us.  Perhaps, some of us are not getting what God wants for us because we are not giving God what He wants from us.

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By Divine Deliverance

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, Do you want to be healed?- John 5:6 (ESV)

Deliverance is derived from the Divine.  Deliverance is disseminated by the Divine.  The Divine has the power to deliver us from whatever may plague us in this world.  The believer’s faith rests in Him.

Jesus approached this one man among many sick and suffering people.  He asked this man directly if he wanted to be healed.  The man offered an excuse and explanation of his current situation.  That wasn’t what Jesus asked him. 

Jesus wanted to know if this man wanted to have his situation changed, not whether he could change his own situation or not.  If we could change our own situations by our own power, many of us wouldn’t have ever heard it when someone else shared their testimony or said that they were praying for us.

When Jesus asks directly, we need to respond directly.  Jesus wants to know if we are ready, not why we haven’t done this and that or gotten here or there.  Being in need doesn’t make everyone ready to receive.   Notice that Jesus had to step over some other folks to get to this man.  The Word says that there were many who could be called: blind, lame, and paralyzed. 

It was obvious that when Jesus picked out this man for a particular purpose.  Didn’t the blind smell His scent? Didn’t the paralyzed see Him step over themselves and others? Didn’t the lame sense His presence despite the pain running through their bodies? I would imagine that at least one person probably wondered where He was headed and whether He knew what type of place He had entered on that day.   Yet, that is how Jesus works.  He can use His interaction with one among many to spark inspiration within the entire crowd, giving people hope that they can hold onto day by day.

If you are willing, the Divine can deliver you.  He can heal you.  He can remove the pain in your heart and soul.  He can touch your spirit by mending it with His Spirit.  Let Him be your hope.  Let Him become your help. 

Receive your deliverance from the Divine and be made whole once again, restored by the risen and resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ.

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Words from the Underground

I wrote Words from the Underground in order to speak out and give a literary voice to the stories that lie hidden within the inner city streets of urban America.  I’ve been out there over the years.  Back in the day, I craved the allure of the street life that promised easy riches and high times.  I discovered that nothing is easy out in the streets, especially when you throw in drugs and money.  Fast forward several years.  I found myself on the streets as I sought to stir up community involvement through urban faith-based and community-based programs.  Later, once a minister of the gospel, I was doing “street ministry,” sharing through the Word and good works.  It was a complete turn around.

 I use my creative expressions through writing and seek to shed light on the darkness that exists and seems hidden from the eyes of most of America.  They do not know the pain of the people.  They fail to see the people on the streets as real people.  To me, it is more than a book.  It’s poetry mixed with social commentary and advocacy.  Perhaps, someone will read this and gain a deeper and clearer understanding of what goes on out there.  Someone else may read this and feel like someone has finally put into words what had been pulsating within them for so many years.  Finally, this may truly move someone to do something.  Maybe someone will develop a program to help others within their city.  Maybe someone else will start speaking out and advocating for the people who live in these inhumane conditions.  Truthfully, I would be satisfied if someone just read my words and started treating people like people, never truly knowing what someone else’s story may be beneath the mask they wear day in and day out.  Maybe so.

Enter into a world unknown to many… the Underground.

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