By Sherri Stevens

The scars on your body and your soul are not a sign of shame but a sign of struggle. Your scars tell a story. They say that you are an Overcomer! That is why I am such a big fan of the Japanese art of kintsugi. Kintsugi, or "golden joinery," is a method that highlights cracks rather than hiding them. This Japanese craft involves using lacquer and powdered gold, silver, or platinum to repair shattered ceramics. This results in the design of intricate veins that run around the repaired object. These irregular lines are not seen as flaws but as an element that enhances the vessel's beauty.

Rather than restoring a broken object to its original glory, kintsugi focuses on creating a newly imagined, distinctive vessel that honors the object's story. This method embodies the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, which embraces the beauty of imperfections and impermanence.

God's kingdom has a kintsugi-like style of restoring and repairing the broken hearts of broken people. Each of us has our own brand of failures, flaws, and frailties, but if we surrender ourselves to God's restorative handiwork, He will fill the cracks of our character with the lacquer of His love and golden grace.

A PROPER PERSPECTIVE OF PERFECTIONISM

Despite all the Scriptural passages describing the default disposition of our fragile frame, many of us still feel pressured to live up to some unattainable standard of perfection. In many cases, it is because of a misunderstanding of what the Bible teaches about “being perfect” that we feel buried and burdened under such an unrealistic expectation.

The Bible encourages us to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15), yet much of the teaching coming from pulpits today "wrongly divides” where the Old Covenant ends and the New Covenant begins. This lack of understanding has resulted in the average Christian feeling fearful, guilty, and condemned. For example, the pastor or priest points his bony finger to the congregation and threatens with the “red letters of Jesus”: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

But the mistake many Bible teachers make is that they miss the pivotal truth taught in the book of Hebrews: “In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living” (Heb. 9:16–17).

During Jesus's teaching ministry on earth, he taught under the Old Covenant. Throughout the gospel accounts, we read of Jesus amplifying the stringency of the Law and stressing humanity's utter inability to achieve God’s unattainable requirement of holy perfection. Jesus had not yet died; therefore, the New Covenant had not yet gone into effect!

In contrast, the New Covenant reads: “By one sacrifice, He has made perfect forever those that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). As believers, our standing before God is because of what Christ accomplished for us, not because of what we need to accomplish. Jesus fulfilled the Law because we couldn’t. He lived a righteous life and imputed His righteousness to us because we have no righteousness in and of ourselves. God now sees us through the lens of His son, holy and blameless.

OUR STORY, HIS GLORY

God's kingdom of kentsugi honors the stories of broken people. It is in our shattered story that God can display His glory:

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 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. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:8–10).

"Though my heart and flesh may fail. He is the strength of my heart and my portion forever" (Psalm 73:26).

“God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him (1 Cor. 1:27-28).

BROKEN HUMANITY IN THE “HALL OF FAITH”

The only qualification for salvation is our brokenness and our willingness to acknowledge and confess it. Remember, Jesus died for the ungodly, not the “godly.” “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). Jesus emphasized that truth this way: “It is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick” (Matt. 9:12).

We are reborn and can be restored when we acknowledge and confess our brokenness to God. “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 (Titus 3:5).

Hebrews chapter 11, also known as “The Hall of Faith,” lists examples of such people who were recognized for their faith despite their ruined reputations. Consider some of these heroes of the faith while at the same time remembering the cracks in their character: Rahab was a prostitute. Moses murdered an Egyptian. Samson was a philanderer. Noah got drunk and passed out naked in his tent. Abraham lied about his wife being his sister.

In the Old Testament, we read about King David, who committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed. Yet the Bible says of David that he was a man after God’s own heart! The Bible is a literary mosaic recording man's mistakes! I find myself in good company. How about you?

JESUS’ BLOOD BINDS TOGETHER OUR BROKENNESS

It is the blood of Jesus that binds together our brokenness. Our once-shattered vessels showcase the veins of His victory! We see a picture of the protective power and the grace God’s Lamb provides in the Old Testament, where God commanded Israel to apply the blood of an unblemished lamb to the top and sides of the doorposts of their homes while a destructive plague ravaged the land, killing the Egyptians.

The plague passed over the Israelites not because of any good deeds they had done but because the blood of an unblemished lamb had been applied to the doorposts of homes, a sign that the plague could pass over. This Passover story forever reminds us: Worthy is the Lamb, not the sheep!

SHATTERED, BUT SANCTIFIED

In Zechariah 14:20, we read about everyday objects that were sacred: “On that day ‘HOLY TO THE LORD’ will be inscribed on the bells of horses, and the cooking pots in the Lord’s house will be like the sacred bowls in front of the alter.” These objects were considered sacred because of the inscription on them, not because of any exceptional aesthetics they brought to the table.

In a similar way, we, as believers in Christ, may have shattered pasts, but because we belong to Him, we, too, are sacred. Jesus is our sanctification. “But because of Him you are in Christ Jesus who became wisdom from God for us – our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).

Imagine if you saw a somewhat crumpled green bill on the ground, picked it up, and unwadded it only to discover Benjamin Franklin's portrait on the front of it. Would that crumpled currency still be worth $100? Of course! And so it is with us. Regardless of how unworthy and wrinkled we may feel, God has set us apart, sanctified us, and made us worthy because we are in Christ.

As previously discussed, we are sanctified because we live under the New Covenant: “By one sacrifice, He has made perfect forever those that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). We don’t sanctify ourselves. It is because of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice executed 2000 years ago that we have been sanctified. We were set apart for a holy purpose and now we aspire to walk worthy of our calling because God has made us worthy.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

To become beautiful, we had to break, and where we were broken can become the places of our greatest strength if we allow God’s golden grace to strengthen us. We can be vessels of His mercy and trophies of his grace when we surrender our shattered pieces to Him so He can restore and renew us.

You are beautifully broken!

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