Beloved Before You Get Better

Brokenness As Bread For Others

Psalm 34 And God’s Nearness

Jesus Enters Locked Rooms With Peace

Even Though Faith And Covenant Trust

Scars That Invite Intimacy

Breath Prayer Reflection And Closing

Donald E Coleman 0:21

All right, welcome back to we're in episode four of the beloved becoming who we already are series. And from the beginning, now we picked up this three things. We've been talking about movement. And in the first episode, we talked about you are beloved. And then we went to the second episode, you're chosen, and you are blessed. So we are continuing to move into this sacred movement. And that fourth movement that we're going to discuss in this episode is you are beloved even in your brokenness. I just want that to settle. Because a lot of people are under the impression or misinformation that you become beloved after you get out of the situation. And that's not the case because John 3.16 tells us that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. He loved the world before we got it right. So gonna flow in this because I just there's a major sense coming up. And I want to say this before I go in. And I and I hope you're I hope you're grabbing a hold of what's happening with all the information about belovedness, about your belovedness, my belovedness, about being beloved of God, and also about what happens in the wilderness or the desert experiences. Because what I realize now, and I'm studying this out, is the moment we claim and we start living in our belovedness, we are actually bearers of the name of God. Because God is love, belovedness is love actually received and allowing it to flow out. So as we start to understand that we are beloved of God, we carry God's name and presence with us wherever we go. And I hope you started to notice in each one of the lessons. I mean, since July of 2025, it was talking about, we're talking about agape, and the presence of agape has never left us, and the presence of agape is always pursuing us, and the presence of agape is doesn't want to leave us the same, and that we actually can control how much of agape we receive or not receive. And agape is inclusive. But as we talk about brokenness, it's important to understand that and these four movements has a lot to do with us being seen. And brokenness is not a negative thing. And I hope you get that out of this message. People might say, Well, I'm broken. No, well, it depends on the brokenness that you're talking about. But in the eyes of God, we see that being broken is actually an honor before God because on the night that Jesus at the Last Supper He took the bread, he blessed it, right? Then he broke the bread. But what happened after breaking the bread? He passed the bread out. So that brokenness is separating the stuff within us that is not going to be beneficial for agape to flow. Or I like to say it is it's removing the stuff out of us that would occupy space where agape can fill, fill us and overflow out of us. So let me say it this way: so you're beloved, even in your brokenness, and not after you are healed, and not after you heal, and not after you get it all together, and not after the struggle or the situation or the circumstance is over. You are loved exactly where your heart aches the most. So God is agape, and God goes into the deepest chambers of our being, and God wants to address the things that nobody else knows, but God knows, and this is where the beloved identity or our belovedness identity becomes real or living. And when I say this, it it just immediately what it brought me back was to John chapter one, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. See, it became real, it becomes living. Out of the brokenness, we become the blessing of God or the bearers of God's presence in name in the world that we live in. Just think about how beautiful that is. I just really want you to let that soak in. Within the brokenness and out of the brokenness, God gets the glory. So Psalms 34, I'm gonna read a little bit of scriptures here, two of them to be exact. I might have more as we flow, but I'm gonna read two scriptures in Psalms 38. I mean, Psalms 34, I'm gonna read from 15 and I'm gonna go to 18 because I want you to see how even in our time of understanding, through the Psalms, David and the Old Testament, and they realize that God was with them in the brokenness. But look what it says here. It says, the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous. That just pause right there. So it says, God is looking for the righteous. And we know in the Old Testament it calls righteousness, but it's like those who call upon the name of the Lord or those who are bearers of the Lord's name is what we will summarize as the righteous. So look what it says here: the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive, are attentive to their cry. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil to blot out their name from the earth. Let's keep going. Verse 17. The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them, he delivers them from all their troubles. I mean, did you did you just get that? So if you if you if you're in a situation and you're listening to this and you are walking and you're present with God and you know that you're beloved, or even if you don't know that you're beloved, God is saying to you, watch this now. God is saying, the righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them, but not only hears, the Lord goes into action. Remember, pursuing, agape pursues, he delivers them from all their troubles. Look at verse 18. Verse 18 says it this way: the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Oh, I want you to get that. And most of us, if not everyone in listening to this or in the world, has had a broken heart or have experienced something that brought them. I don't know, I don't want to use the word pain because that might just be it, it brought them discomfort. It made them discontent inside. But look what God is saying here. It said, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and this is why I believe that God is inviting us into presence or inviting us into the awareness that He's with us in all things, He's right there with us. We might see or might have seen God as being far away or out there, but God is saying, wait a minute, I want you to understand, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted, close. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, the e the Lord's ears are intentive. Look now, verse 19, 34, 19, it says, The righteous person may have many troubles. Oh, that's so comforting, may have many situations or circumstances, may have challenges that that we are faced with, but look what it says here. It says, But the Lord delivers him from them all. I just want you to get that. Just let that settle. And John chapter 20, verse 27 says it this way. This is the New Testament version, and and this is what John is saying here. 2027 says, says it this way. It says, let me go back. I think I'm gonna read a little bit. Jesus says here, in 2027, he says, put your finger here, see my hands, reach out your hand and put your hand at my side. So what Jesus is saying is, is I'm close. This is after the resurrection. He says, I'm close, I'm right here with you. They were all in despair. But I'll go back before 27. What does it say here? It says, when it says there was a knock at the door. Though the door was locked, I'm sorry, though the door was locked, Jesus came and stood amongst them and said, Peace be with you. That's what God is saying. Peace, my peace be with you. Or Jehovah's peace, Yahweh's peace, God's peace, my peace. Jesus is saying, My peace, which is the peace of God that was in Genesis, that came all the way through all of the Old Testament and through now is with you. Peace be with you. And then Thomas said, then he said to Thomas, he said, put your finger here, see my hands, reach out your hands and put them in my side. And he said, Stop doubting and believe. Right? So stop doubting and believe. Believe what? That I am the God that's close to you, that I am watching over you, that I am attentive to you, that I am everything that we just read in Psalms, that the Lord is close. He said, Stop doubting and believe that the Lord is close. Right? That the righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers them from them all. Right? And 17, what does it say? It says the righteous cries out, and the Lord hears them and delivers them from all their troubles. This is what Jesus did when he showed up while they were all concerned and wondering, oh my goodness, they just crucified our rabbi, our Messiah. So the point here is you are beloved. You're beloved in the brokenness. And I want to bring this term in here. I want you to understand this term. You're beloved in the brokenness, you're beloved in the womb, you're in the wound, you're beloved in the trauma. And I want to bring these terms in. I want to call it the even though and in spite of. So even though there may be troubles, and even though I might have not done everything right, God is still present with me. And all we have to do is know that God is present with me and present with you. So even though there might be everything around you might be crumbling, I just want you to get this. And everything might look contrary. And we might be, and you might be in the worst storm of your life. Like we're in this situation right now, and the world is saying, even though the world seems like it's going crazy, and in spite of all that is happening, God is saying, I'm with you. I just want you to understand this. I want you to grab a hold of this because the language of even though and in spite of you, this is a deeper language. This language is only understood in your belovedness because it comes from a place of lived relationship, it's not a head knowledge, it's not something that you just read in the word. It is the word becoming flesh, a lived relationship in scripture, the confidence to say, even though the world shifts, even though suffering comes, and even though uncertainty remains, emerges the trust in God's presence. This is what the disciples or the apostles and the first century church and the second century church and the third century church was able to hold on to. And even though they were being martyred, and even though they were being slain, and even though they were being beaten, and even though they were being bruised and broken and wounded, there's one thing. We see in the saints and the martyrs, we see them willingly wanting to be present with the Lord as their body was being beaten. Why? Because they had something, they had a lived experience with God. They were the bearers of the name of Yahweh. They were bearers of the name of Jesus. In the Old Testament, it's called Yahweh. And in the New Testament, God the Father introduces that there is no other name on the earth in which man can be saved. He said, But at the name of Jesus, the bearer of the name, every knee will bow, every tongue confess. And he said, Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord, the Lord now, that means Yahweh. And they're talking synonymous now in the New Testament. God the Father, Yahweh, and Jesus are connected synonymously. So anyone who calls on the name of Jesus is calling on the name of the Father, Yahweh, is calling on the God that says, I am, the one that mentioned, that met Moses at the burning bush. The all-consuming God, the sustainer of life in the old, the one that the Israelites knew, the one that they were looking for when Moses shows up and they said, Who sent you? He said, Tell them, I am sent you, and I will be what I will be, is the same God that we have in Jesus. So although things may be around us, may be happening, God is calling us into the awareness of our belovedness, because he knows that brokenness is happening. The world is designed for brokenness. The world is trying to take brokenness and make it a womb or trauma. And I've said this over and over again that wounds and trauma have become currency in the world in which we live. People are living by their trauma. Trauma has become identity. No, but beloved, no, trauma cannot be your identity because your identity is rooted and grounded in what? In love or in agape. Your identity is rooted and grounded in your belovedness. So here's what I want you to understand. Even though the world shifts, even though the suffering comes, even though uncertainty remains, but what remains is and what emerges from this trust in God's presence, it says, but that trust is not abstract, it's not far out there, it's not something that is metaphorically. That trust, it grows out of recognition, it grows out of knowing that you are beloved, and not just knowing it, but saying, I am the beloved, we are the beloved. Those who have encounter God as present can say, even though this is happening, I am not abandoned. In spite of this, I am not alone. This is covenant awareness in action. And God, what we don't understand is that God is in covenant with us, and we are in covenant with God, the same covenant that He made with Abraham. We are part of that covenant relationship. I just want you to understand this. I want you to reach deep inside and just really start to just chew on your belovedness, chew on that agape pursues you and agape has been pursuing you. Agape wants relationship with you. And I want to point out here now, so as I go in some Henry Nowen's insights, so Henry Nowin teaches that the being beloved is not only about being chosen and blessed, but it is also about being broken in love or in agape. Jesus said, if anyone wants to follow me, what must they do? They must pick up their cross and follow me. Why? Because on the cross, the flesh is broken. On the cross, the flesh dies. You see, on the cross, we get we get to understand through the cross, and I want to bring even more insight on the cross. The cross was natural, it was made of wood, it was part of the Creation. So, what is that saying? In the natural realm, there are going to be things that's going to try to break us and separate us from our belovedness. I imagine most of us listening to this have been living in that separation of brokenness of our belovedness. I'm sorry, have been living in it. The world, the natural realm, one goal is to separate you from your belovedness in the same way that it separated Adam and Eve from the very presence of God inside of Eden. But it is through the lived experience, knowing that you are a bearer of the name of God, you are a bearer of the Spirit of God? Didn't Paul say, know you not, that your body is a temple of God, that the Holy Spirit, that God dwells in you? So how can brokenness and woundedness and trauma separate us from our presence with God? God is in us and with us. So what is the trauma? What does the wound come to do? It comes to get us to start to focus on what we can do and not what God is doing. So we try, it tries to get us to become autonomous with God. No, saints. No, saints says anyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And that's just not talking about being saved as in your new birth, that is being saved from any situation. We just read it in Psalms that the Lord's eyes are looking and his ears are intentive. Oh, I want you to get this. So again, with Henry Nowen, I want to read the statement again. Henry Nowin teaches that being beloved is not only about being chosen and blessed. It is also about being broken in love. He says, we are broken in ways that allow love to deepen. Oh, let me rephrase that. Okay. That's Henry Nowen said it that way. But I want to say it this way: we are broken in ways that allows agape to deepen in us. Oh, did you catch that? And brokenness allows agape to deepen or become a greater awareness of agape that is living and flowing in us. Brokenness, you got this? Listen, brokenness is not failure. I know you might have heard it, but it's not. Brokenness is not failure. It is the place where love can enter. Oh, get it. We just we just read it right there in John. They were broken, and what we didn't see was Thomas was actually complaining about where is he? Where is our Lord? And he came through the door. You see, you getting it now? It is the place where love can enter. Jesus shows up and says, Thomas and everyone in the room, peace be with you. My peace be with you. And Thomas, I know you you don't understand this, but I want you to put your hands, I want you to see the holes in my hands. And I want you to put your hand in the side where the where this the centurion stuck the knife. Why? Because I'm alive. And I want you to know that I will always be with you. And in spite of, and even though things may seem like I'm not there, I need you to know that I'm there. Oh Lord, that's so beautiful. Isn't this beautiful? I just want you to really sit with that for a moment. Brokenness is not failure, it is the place where love can enter in. But many of us have learned to hide our wounds. Or we we talk about it as in how we came out of the situation. And many of us have learned to prove our value or to show strength instead of tenderness. You see, we've been shaped by, remember Egypt? We've been shaped by our Egypt, by our cultural environment. But God is saying, if you become aware of my aware of my presence with you, I will shape you in a way that the world can't touch you. I want you to understand that. That is so important. Because many people with wounds and trauma have run from the church because it might have been the church or people within the church that caused the womb or the trauma. And God is saying to you tonight don't allow that trauma to separate you from your belovedness and to separate you from me. And I want you to see now how Jesus models belovedness and brokenness. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna break down John and I got a couple more scriptures here because Jesus does not hide his wounds. Did you catch that? He reveals them. See, it was shame for him to be on that cross naked. He was disgraced in the eyes of man, but in the sight of God, he was everything that God desired for man to have relationship with God again, or for God to be able to have relationship with us. I just really hope that you get this. Throughout the Old Testament, I want you to grab this now about belovedness. Throughout the Old Testament, God was always external when it came to the Israelites, the bearers of God, of God's name and God's presence. God was always external, and God flowed a work through the prophets. So it was an external. But in the New Testament, after Jesus rises, and on the day of Pentecost, there's a shift from an external understanding or a manifestation of God's presence to the internal. God shows Moses in the burning bush, and on Pentecost, the fire, the tongues like fire, rest upon men and goes in. Oh, I want you to really see what's happened there. Because God's saying, I'm with you. God, Jesus does not hide his wounds because why? I want you to understand this. This is so, thank you, Holy Spirit. I want you to understand why he doesn't hide his wounds. Because by his stripes we are healed. And throw and through his chastisement, we have peace. Isaiah 53. Let me get let me get there. Oh, I gotta get that. That that's that just came to me. I gotta read that to you. Let me let me get it on here. Isaiah 53. Oh, don't you love it when God just moves? I'm gonna read this, Isaiah 53, and it says right here. I'm gonna read from, I'm just gonna read from, I'm gonna read from one down to verse six. And this is fresh. This just came to me right here as I'm talking to you live. It says, Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Oh, he grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. Oh, you ready? He was despised and rejected by mankind and a man of suffering and familiar with pain, like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took our pain and bore our suffering. Yet we consider him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, and the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We were all like sheep gone astray. Each of us has turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of all. Oh, wait, there's more. Look, it says he was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before the shears is silent. So he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. Now, do you understand why Jesus doesn't hide his wounds? Because through his wounds, we as believers live in our in the peace and in the healing and in the presence of God. That scripture, if you if you're dealing with something right now that's physically in your body, it says that by Jesus' stripes, we're healed. So if you hold on to that scripture, we know that Jesus was beaten. We know that Jesus was bruised. My God, thank you. Thank you, Holy Spirit. Let me finish. He says, so Jesus did not hide his wounds, he reveals them. He said, put your finger here, see my hands. He does not show his strength to prove he is risen. He shows his scars to invite Thomas closer. My God, I just hope you got that. Jesus did not show his strength to prove he was risen. He showed his scars or his wounds to invite Thomas closer. And in the same way, he's asking you and me, whoever is listening to this, he's asking us to show him the womb so that he can come closer to us. Jesus teaches us intimacy grows where hiding ends. I hope you get in this. My God. Intimacy grows where hiding ends. Watch, I'm gonna bring up Peter here. Watch, look what happens. And he says, and when Peter denied Jesus, what is the first thing that happens? When shame should have destroyed Peter, right? It said that he went away and he wept after he denied Jesus three times. It says in Luke 22, 61, he says, and the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And then what? Peter ran away. But look what happens: that look was not in anger. That look was not in disappointment, but with love deeper than Peter's failure. The look was the look of agape. And agape is always deeper than our failures. Why? Because agape is flowing through the even though and the in spite of. Want you all now as we get ready to just kind of flow on this. I gotta take a moment here because I want this to rest in for you. Let's take a contemplative pause here. I want you to take in a take a breath in. Take one deep breath in and let it out. Now, as you inhale on the next breath, breathe in. God meets me where I am wounded. I want you to think about that. And exhale, I do not have to hide to be loved or beloved. One more time, breathe in. God meets me where I am wounded. Exhale. I do not have to hide to be beloved or loved. Let the breath be gentle. Why? Because this is holy ground. Remember, God meets me where I am wounded. God meets me in my trauma. God meets me in the place where I'm despised by others. And Isaiah, I want you to catch this now. Isaiah was hundreds of years prophesied. He was talking about Jesus hundreds of years before it actually manifested. I might go as far as saying thousands, but hundreds times hundreds. You got it? But here is the core truth that I want you to leave with this. You got it? So the core truth is your brokenness is not a barrier to God. And don't let anybody tell you that ever again from this point. Your brokenness is not a barrier to God, it is the doorway into communion. Yes, brokenness is the doorway into communion, a deeper, more profound, intimate relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. It is the place where compassion becomes personal, where grace becomes experienced, and agape becomes necessary. God becomes near. The trauma is not the end of your story. The situation or circumstance that you're in is not the end of the story. The wound is the beginning of your healing. Now I want you to think about these questions, reflect on these questions into the next episode. Where in my life, where in my life have I been afraid to be seen in my brokenness? Just let it settle. Take these with you. Whose voice taught me I had to hide to be loved or beloved? So whose voice taught you that you had to hide to be loved? Oh, can you not hear the saboteurs right now? I bet the saboteurs are like just totally trying to bombard you. The judge is trying to come in and just tell you all these things. But now I want you to imagine here's the third question here. Can you imagine Jesus looking at you the way he looked at Peter with love greater than your failure? I'm gonna end it. Here, let's pray. Please give me the courage and the strength to stop hiding. Give me trust to let your love touch me where it hurts. Yes, give me the confidence, give me the willingness or the understanding to allow you to love me and to touch me where it hurts. Let brokenness become the place where intimacy is born within me. Let brokenness become the threshold into intimacy. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. All right, beloved. So beloved, chosen, blessed, broken, and loved. And then the next episode we move to the fifth movement of belovedness. Episode five. Given. Your life becomes the gift. Not giving out of striving, but giving out of overflow of the belovedness you have received or the agape you have received. And until the next episode, you are loved where you hurt, you are held where you tremble, and you are beloved even in your brokenness. Until next time, keep living daily for Christ.