Here is today’s Daily Redemption bulletin.
Today we confront the lie that you are “not enough,” discovering that God’s love isn’t a reward for being fixed, repaired, whole and always 100% righteous, but the power that heals you right where you are.
Featured Scripture and Commentary
2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
The world says we must be perfect. If we are not perfect we end up in some kind of trouble with some kind of person or another at almost every turn. But who is the “world” to say we must be so perfect while the
world itself is fallen and broken. The world is like a beautiful priceless vase then the cat knocks it off the shelf or Adam wrecks it for everybody or Eddie Murphy does in the movie “Trading Places” (directed by my friend Aaron Russo – a very flawed individual but one who really had a rugged love for humanity).
Jesus came to save us from our own brokenness and sin and sin nature. He knew who/what He was coming to die for and how salvation from our worldly selves was His mission. The second Adam coming to undo the
curse of the first. Look at the song “Anthem” from Leonard Cohen. It has some of the most blasphemous lyrics of, literally, any popular song, ever. The line “there is a crack in everything. that’s how the light gets in” can be
a statement of the universal fractured and fallen nature of humanity as in “jars of clay” (2 Cor. 4:7) or it can be seen in a less generous way. And yet here is where it aligns with today’s DR message. It says right at the outset “forget your perfect offering”. We are all broken and so are our offerings (works offered to a perfect, holy, sovereign, all powerful all present God). The Law (Torah) demanded a perfect offering (no blemishes, offered up exactly as prescribed by God, etc). But we cannot give one. We are broken. The Gospel says: Stop trying to offer your perfection. It’s not required. Jesus is the perfect offering. When we stop trying to be “good enough” and admit our cracks, we are finally ready to receive Him. So often you see somebody only breaking down and praying and coming to Jesus when they realize all of their own self-reliant and proud worldly solutions had failed and they had nowhere else to turn. It is part of our brokenness that we don’t turn first to the “one who left us here who will return for us at last” (Jesse Colin Young)
The whole point I am making here is this. The last line of the last verse says “all to love will come like a refugee” which seems to align with “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess Jesus as Lord”. So here is this guy who has an album (and a body of work) full of sacreligous lyrics but admits of our human imperfection before the standards of God. He even flirts with the unforgiveable sin (saying the “dove” is never free) and proclaims an ego beyond anything I have seen in popular music ends up with an affirmation of the Bible ends up offering up “all to love will come like a refugee”. Now IF he is saying that Jesus is that love and if we are refugees coming to Jesus to escape our own sin then…. well, then there may be no more perfect example of our brokenness represented in Cohen himself, being used by God to proclaim the salvation offered in Jesus. So, Leonard Cohen, who wrote the song about “broken hallelujahs” which sexualizes God worship, who wrote in another song that he is the “little Jew that wrote the Bible”, while also wrote in that same song about the “lousy poets coming around trying to sound like Charley Manson” and who wrote elsewhere conflating Jesus and John The Baptist with Hank Williams and Beethoven and also wrote that the “blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and overturned the order of the soul” and “from the staggering account of the sermon on the mount which I don’t pretend to understand at all” WOW!!!! HOLY BROKENNESS BATMAN! But this guy writes amidst all of his blustering blasphemy and he contritely sings with humility “I’m junk but I’m still holding up this little wild bouquet” and ultimately the Lord moves through all of this with one of the most beautiful prophetic lyrics in a song called “The Anthem” saying all will come to love as a refugee. As it is abstract, it is up to interpretation. Whether Cohen intended it or not, the Spirit speaks through the crack. If Jesus is that Love, then Cohen becomes an unwitting prophet, his own brokenness used to proclaim the salvation offered in Christ.
I use Cohen as an example for several reasons. 1. People need to hear what lyrics are saying such as in his song “Hallelujah” so they don’t align themselves with words that denigrate God just because the song is called Hallelujah and has a lovely melody. 2. Just taking a different approach towards this daily writing, grounding the message in lyrics a great word crafter of this world whom people may be familiar with and because it really does demonstrate the point. God can take a sinner, a failure, an unbeliever and worse, he can take one who is twisted and torn, lost and forlorn, backwards and upside down and one who is proud and puffed up and self celebratory and congratulatory and accomplish good which moves His purpose forward.
So don’t tell me he can’t use you. Thank you Jesus.
LIFE CHANGING AND CORROBORATING SCRIPTURE
Isaiah 41:10, Psalm 139:13–14, Romans 5:8, Ephesians 2:8–9, Titus 3:5, 1 Peter 2:9, Jeremiah 1:5, Philippians 1:6
Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Psalm 139:13–14 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Ephesians 2:8–9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.
Titus 3:5 He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
TODAY’S BIBLICAL MORALITY TALE: God Can Still Put You To Good Use No Matter How Broken You Think You Are
The world lies that you must be fixed to be loved. The Gospel says you are loved so you can be healed. God doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called. As Paul said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Leonard Cohen, who wrote the worship-denigrating “Hallelujah” sang and who asserted “you don’t know me – I’m the little Jew that wrote the Bible” also proclaimed contritely and humbly, “I’m junk but I’m still holding up this little wild bouquet.” He saw beauty in brokenness, but the Gospel goes deeper: Your cracks aren’t just for showing off resilience—they are entry points for His light. Your scars prove His redemption. Your weakness is the stage for His strength.
Do not let shame silence you. You are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). You are His workmanship (Ephesians 2:10). And He is not finished with you yet.
PRAYER FOR WHOMSOEVERS
Lord, thank You for loving me when I felt unlovable. Forgive me for believing the lie that I am not enough. Help me to see myself as You see me: chosen, redeemed, and fully sufficient in Your grace. Use my brokenness for Your glory. Fill my weakness with Your strength. I surrender my inadequacy to You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
