And let this be a unity that issues out of that brokenness. For I've noticed even of myself, and others here on SI, and in the church at large, that we often have a way of doing much apologizing many times, with many visits to an altar of repentance. But lasting brokenness? Have we seen it? I think as a whole, not.

And why? [u]Because if you've ever examined something that is broken, it has an abiding characteristic: [b]It is unable to do that which it once did.[/b][/u] And unless we have come to such a place, then we are not truly broken.

Leonard Ravenhill was once talked to a man who said to him, "Every morning I wake up, I make myself a living sacrifice to God. Do you do that?" Ravenhill replied, "No." To which the man astonishingly said, "What?!?!" Then Ravenhill said, "You see, the only way I can make myself a living sacrifice every day is if at sometime I took myself off the altar."

You see, this isn't a mere matter of biting the tongue or sticking one's foot in one's mouth so as to avoid saying something we ought not. For the heart of the matter is we ought not have a mouth that we are required to stick a foot in to begin with! And such can only come from a renewal of the heart. For Jesus said, "It is out of the abundance of the heart that a man speaks."

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Jimmy H