Breaking the Cycle

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Today's reading, titled Breaking the Cycle, was written by Alison Keita. David's first beating came at the hands of his father on his seventh birthday after he accidentally broke a window. He kicked me and punched me, David said.

Afterward, he apologized. He was an abusive alcoholic, and it's a cycle I'm doing my best to end now. But it took a long time for David to get to this point.

Most of his teen years and 20s were spent in jail or on probation and in and out of addiction treatment centers. When it felt like his dreams were entirely dashed, he found hope in a cry-centered treatment center through a relationship with Jesus. I used to be filled with nothing but despair, David says.

Now, I'm pushing myself in the other direction. When I get up in the morning, the first thing I tell God is that I'm surrendering my will over to Him. When we come to God with lives shattered, whether by others' wrongdoing or by our own, God takes our broken hearts and makes us new. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17 tells us, If anyone is in Christ, the old has gone and the new is here. Christ's love and life breaks into the cycles of our past, giving us a new future.

And it doesn't end there. Throughout our lives, we can find hope and strength in what God has done and continues to do in us, each and every moment. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 14 through 21. For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the old has gone, the new is here. All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for taking our brokenness and making us brand new creations. Help us to overcome the areas in our lives where we struggle and where we don't honor you. When we still struggle and have shame over it, help us to remember that you love us and that we are a work in progress. Thank you, Lord. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.