This is “God Uses Life’s Bruises.” Do you ever catch yourself wishing for a wrinkle-free, worry-free life? It seems like, from the outside, those lives exist. But let’s be honest. Have you ever actually met someone with a wrinkle-free, worry-free life? It’s pretty much the law of nature that no one makes it through life without taking some punches. No one makes it to the finish line without making some bad decisions. Sometimes we’re tempted to believe that the dents and dings in our life disqualify us from being used by God. Well, you might be surprised to learn in this message with Jentezen Franklin that God can do some of His best work through our hurts and brokenness. It’s the kind of beautiful, redemptive work only He can do.

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>> Thank you for

joining us today.

It’s our prayer

and our deep desire

that we speak a message

that touches your life today

as you view this program.

And I agree with you that

you’re going to find

God’s will and God’s next

step for your life.

Listen to this message

and let it speak to you today.

♪ ♪

>> 1 Kings 20.

I’ll begin with Verse 35.

“Now a certain man of the sons

of the prophets said

to his neighbor

by the word of the Lord,”

in other words,

God told him say,

“‘Strike me, please.’

And the man refused

to strike him,

and he said to him,

‘Because you have not obeyed

the voice of the Lord, surely,

as soon as you depart from me,

a lion shall kill you.’

And as soon as he left him,”

which I would’ve never left him.

He’s my neighbor.

I might as well move in here.

This is a wild story.

“And as soon as he left him,

a lion found him

and killed him.”

Look at Verse 37.

“And he found another man,”

the prophet, “and said,

‘Strike me, please.’

So the man struck him,”

and notice the wording,

“the man struck him

and inflicted a wound.

Then the prophet departed

and waited for the king

by the road,

and disguised himself with

a bandage over his eyes.”

I’d like to read one more

verse in the last verse

of that chapter, Verse 43,

“So the king of Israel went

to his house sullen,” or heavy,

“and displeased,

and came to Samaria.”

One translation said

heavy under conviction.

I love that.

So, I wanna talk to you

today about something,

and I’ll give you the title

in a few minutes,

but this is one of those wild

stories in the Old Testament

that has not much

of any lead up to it.

It almost seems random, strange,

in the middle of everything,

and God doesn’t explain it.

He leaves it up to people

to come up with a message

out of it.

To me, it’s strange because

you have things you don’t

understand about this text.

Why is a prophet standing there

saying to a man with a sword

’cause it was a serious wound

that he inflicted on him,

required bandages and help,

and he said strike me.

I mean, God told him to go tell

a soldier or somebody with

a sword to strike him.

And the Bible said, you know,

that the man looked at him

like you would look.

What if somebody came up

and said, “Hit me.

Hit me.”

I remember when mom used to whip

me and dad used to whip me.

They would say a little line

every once in a while that

I thought was cruel and unusual

punishment because they

would say something like,

“You asked for it.”

Y’all remember those words?

And I would always

come back quick.

I’m asking you to forgive me.

I’m asking you to not do this.

And they said, “No.

When you didn’t do what

I told you to do,

you asked for this,

so now you’re gonna get it.”

And it’s almost like this —

well, it’s not an almost.

This prophet is standing

there saying, “Strike me.

Hit me.

Thus sayeth the Lord,

hit me with your sword.

Hit me hard.

Cut me.”

And the first guy

doesn’t do it.

I mean, it’s just random.

This whole story is in two

or three verses.

And then when he didn’t do it,

the guy turns around and says

then I just release a lion

to kill you for not obeying

what the Lord told you to do,

and a lion came

and he killed him.

And then while he’s out

there chewing on the guy,

he goes to another man,

and he says, “Strike me,”

and I like this guy.

He’s like, “Where at?

I don’t care.

I’m about to cut you bad.

You have no idea.”

Because I believe he was

thinking I know what happened

to the last guy who

was told to do this,

so you’re about to get hit.

And it’s really amazing.

Teaches you a couple of things.

When you see things in the Bible

and in life there are always

lessons to be learned in things

you don’t understand.

In life you’re gonna have

things that hit that you

will not understand,

and in the Bible there

are things that seem random

that you don’t understand.

The first thing that I want

you to understand about

the story is that the prophet

found another man real quick.

If you, if you don’t have

an appetite for your call

and your place in what God

has told you to do,

if you don’t love what

God has given you,

and you don’t love the family

or the husband or the wife

or the life that God

has given you,

if you don’t take advantage

of the opportunities

and the open doors

and the times when God says I

want you to do something for me,

if you decide not to do it,

please learn from this

story God always has somebody

else He can raise up.

He may have to get

them off of drugs.

He may have to pull them out

from living under a bridge,

but just when you think you’re

all that and just when you think

that you’re so big and powerful

and smart and talented,

God says if you don’t

learn to obey me,

don’t ever forget I’ve got

another man or another woman

always waiting in the wings,

and I’m gonna get my job done.

I’d like to use you,

but I don’t have to use you.

I can use somebody else,

and it’s all dependent upon

will you obey me,

even when you don’t

understand my instructions.

And the man smoked him

and notice the text,

wounded him.

He was visibly wounded.

The prophet was bleeding,

had to have bandages

put on his body,

and then he went from that place

immediately and waited on a spot

on the road because God had

told him the king of Israel,

King Ahab, was coming

in his chariot with

his entourage down that road,

and now that he

had been wounded,

now that he had been hurt,

now that he had been attacked,

now that he had bled

he has something about him

that immediately felt now I’m

ready to go give the message

to the most powerful man

in the nation because

I am qualified.

I mean, he asked for

it and then he knew he had

a message from God,

but he wasn’t qualified to give

it until he had been wounded,

until he had been hurt,

until he had gone through

some suffering and some pain

and some tears and some

bleeding and some hurting.

He had the word,

but he said I’m not qualified.

I’m not prepared,

and I’m not positioned to give

the king because the king would

have kept on riding if he

hadn’t seen the prophet

and the one that had bandages

all over him bleeding.

It caught his attention.

He said, “I’ll listen

to that man.”

So many times we think

it’s our talent that will

bring us before great people,

and certainly it helps.

I’m not against it.

Your education, all of that,

we all need all we can get,

but when it really comes down

to it what I’ve learned

and I’m a communicator,

this is what I do for a living,

the sermons that reach people

the most and touch people

the most are not ones that just

are up here that are Bible,

spitting out facts of the Bible

and all of that’s important,

but it’s really when in times

that I’ve gone through woundings

and hurts and cuts

and attacks myself that I begin

to have this authority.

There’s a weightiness that

comes when somebody’s been

through something.

We want a perfect life.

We want no wounds, no hurts,

beautiful families,

no issues to ever hit our lives,

and when it does come we sulk,

we sour, we fail to understand

that this prophet said, God,

if that’s what it takes,

the wounds and the hurts for me

to help somebody else

and them listen to me because

of what I’ve been through.

God uses, here’s my title,

“God Uses Life’s Bruises.”

God uses life’s wounds.

Your wounds carry a message

in them that men and women

in a hurting world

who are hurting —

I don’t care how hard they are.

I don’t care how

wicked they are.

I don’t care how drunk they are.

I don’t care how high they are.

I don’t care how many

lovers they have.

When they encounter someone

who’s speaking a word from

the Lord and that someone has

been qualified by their own

wounds and their own failures

and their own heart broken

and their own bleeding

in some area of their life.

There’s something about that,

the foolishness of preaching,

and He needs wounded,

hurt, bruised people

to bring that message.

You say, well, I have a valid

excuse to not be a good dad

because I never had one.

Well, you can look

at it like that or you

can say I’ve been wounded,

and God can take my bruises

and my wound and my cut.

Because I didn’t have a mother

doesn’t mean I’m gonna

pass generational curses

to my children to be the same

way and to abandon their family,

but God can actually use what

they mean for my evil,

Joseph said, concerning

his own family.

What they meant for my evil

God can use it for the good,

and I can transfer blessing

and I can be an even more

attentive mother or father

because of what

I’ve been through.

The wounds can be used

to heal and not destroy.

Well, Pastor,

you just don’t understand

how bad I’ve been hurt.

No, you don’t understand

now that you have been hurt,

now that you have been attacked,

now that you have been wounded,

you can be highly effective

in leadership.

The very thing we think

disqualifies us from leadership.

See, we think leaders

have to be perfect.

Their lives have to be perfect.

Somebody that I listen to needs

to have it all together when

in reality sometimes you need

to get around some people who

have been wounded and hurt

and made it through.

Some things,

some things you go through,

some things you go through,

and it’ll never

be the same again.

There’s nothing you can do that

can change it, and it’s hard.

It’s hard.

But God says I can

use that wound.

I can use that bruise.

I can use that attack.

I can use that divorce.

I can use that.

If that disease had not come —

and don’t get me wrong.

God doesn’t send it.

Read the story of Job.

It’s Satan that sends it.

It’s sin that sends it.

It’s the enemy that sends it.

It’s disobedience that sends it.

But God, if He allows the wound

to hurt, the attack, the blood

shed to come to your life,

to your family,

the sword to hit you,

it’s only so He can give you

more ability to communicate

to somebody else that I went

through it, and I made it.

The tragedy,

the loss of a loved one,

the early death

of some relative.

God says I can use that

wound to get my message

across to powerful,

hardened people who nobody else

can reach but the wounded.

Sometimes we think if we’ve

been wounded we can’t leave.

Sometimes we look at God’s

command and say I really can’t

worship today with joy because

I’ve had such a hellish week.

I really can’t lead.

I really can’t help others

because I’ve been wounded

and I’ve been hurt.

I can’t even lead myself.

I’m so messed up.

I can’t even get myself

out of this depression.

How in the world,

how in the world can God use me?

Because that’s how He does.

We’ve all been shot.

Throw away your excuses.

You say I’m the only

one that’s shot?

No, you’re not.

You’re not the only one hurt.

You’re not the only one wounded.

You know children can wound you

and marriage can wound you

and family can wound you,

and job situations can wound you

and business deals that go bad

and devastate you can wound you,

and addictions can wound you.

Here’s a big one:

and friendly fire can wound you;

people that you were so close

and so tight with

and something happened

and now there is this terrible

wound that doesn’t

ever seem to heal.

But what I’m saying to you

is you may never get over it,

but you will get through it

if you will do what God

tells you to do,

and some of you say, well,

I want Him to take it away.

Some scars will never go away.

Some wounds will never go away,

and it may never go away,

but you will get through it,

and you will stand victorious

and you have a choice to make.

You don’t choose what

sword comes at you.

You don’t choose what

wound comes into your life.

Some things just hit,

and you don’t understand

and never will,

but you do choose your response.

In 1 Chronicles 2:16

there is a woman mentioned

by the name of Zeruiah,

and the reason she is mentioned

is because she

is David’s sister.

She is David’s sister,

and her name is Zeruiah,

and the sons of Zeruiah

were Abishai, Joab, and Asahel.

Now, keep that up there

just a moment because

it’s so important for you

to understand because

the Scripture clearly tells

us who this woman was.

Her name was Zeruiah which

means in Hebrew “my wounds.”

My wounds.

Now look at me, everybody.

My wounds.

And the reason that

it’s important is something

happened according to —

you know, they name people

after events sometimes that

happened in their life.

For example, there’s the story

of Benoni who was Rachel’s son,

and she was dying giving birth,

and she said Benoni means

child of my sorrow.

And so she was dying

and as she was dying she said

his name shall be called

Benoni which means sorrow.

And the dad came over

and said, no, no.

As she was dying he said his

name will not be called sorrow.

His name will be called Benjamin

which means son of my right hand

from which is the lineage

of the kings of Israel.

Wow!

In that moment that dad could

have named that child after

the sorrow and the wounds

of the mother,

but he didn’t do that.

You remember when they lost

the Ark of the Covenant,

2 Samuel 6,

and the Bible said

the philistines stole it

and then the father in law,

Eli, the high priest fell

backwards when he heard the news

and broke his neck and that

family went into crisis,

and the Bible says there

was a woman giving birth,

and she named the child Ichabod.

Because of the pain that they

were experiencing in their

generation they decided

to pass it in the name unto

the next to generation,

and the name Ichabod

means the glory has gone.

The glory has departed.

The glory has been taken

out of this family.

Well, here’s the miracle

of 1 Chronicles 2:16.

Zeruiah’s name means my wounds.

They were visible wounds.

Something had happened

in her childhood.

I don’t know if she was burned.

I don’t know if she was injured.

Something had happened

that caused her to have

horrible wounds.

But something amazing happened

through this woman because

her offspring did not receive

a transfer of her issues

into their life.

I can prove this because when

you look at who her three

children were it’s amazing

and it tells you there is Joab.

Joab became the four-star

commander general of the army

of Israel under King David.

The son of my wound became

a four-star general and led

in battle every war that

they fought under the greatest

time that Israel ever had

in the expansion of Israel.

The second son was

called Abishai.

What did he do?

Read in 2 Samuel 23.

You don’t have to go there.

Just read.

2 Samuel 23, the Bible said

David was an old man.

He was the only giant killer

ever recorded to kill a giant

in all of the Bible,

but one day when he got

out on the battlefield

as an old man,

a giant that had six toes

and six fingers,

that’s what your Bible said,

hit him.

He was the brother of Goliath.

Hit him, and he was coming after

him because he had killed his

brother and had him down and was

about to slave the psalmist

of Israel, the King of Israel

David, and across the field

comes the son of the wound.

If she’d transferred wounds

and offense and hurt

and self-pity and depression

and fear and worry,

he would have never —

Nobody had ever seen anybody

kill a giant but David,

but when David was laying

on the ground wounded

and the king was about

to take his head off,

here comes the son of the wound

running across there, Abishai.

He fights the giant,

gets between David

and the giant,

and slew the giant.

And then there’s this third

fella and his name is Asahel,

and you know what his name means

and you know what it says

of him in the Scripture?

It said that he was the fastest

runner in all of Israel.

He could run faster

than anybody.

He was the fastest in his field.

So, here’s a woman

that has wounds.

Her name means my wounds.

She’s carried them all her life,

but instead of letting her wound

produce bitterness and pain

and depression and addiction

and curses and bondage

and low self-esteem

and no belief in themselves

or confidence in themselves.

She raised three champions

in one household

with her wounds.

One became a four-star general,

one became a giant slayer,

and another one became

the fastest in his field.

Don’t tell me you can’t do it.

I know you’ve been wounded

if you’re a single mom

or a single dad,

but you can raise champions

for Jesus Christ if you will

believe that He can use

life’s bruise to bring

about something good.

My question to you,

my question to you is what

will your wounds produce?

Will they produce bitterness?

Will they produce unbelief?

Will they produce addiction?

Will they product rebellion

and excuses and resentment?

This is what

the Apostle Paul said.

He had it all.

He had intellect,

he had education,

he was gifted,

he was an intellectual,

and he said, yet,

I don’t glory in any of that,

but he said I glory

in my infirmities,

my wounds.

He was beaten with rods.

He was stoned.

He was beaten with a cat

of nine tails.

He was tied up.

He was tortured.

He was snake bitten.

He was shipwrecked.

He was stoned and left for dead.

He was scarred up.

He was wounded,

and yet when he said, God,

I wish you would take

all this pain away,

God said I’m not ever

gonna take it away.

You’ll never get over it,

but you will get through it.

As a matter of fact,

my grace is sufficient for you,

and my strength will be made

perfect through your wounds.

I’ll give you grace even

though you’re gonna take hit

after hit after hit.

I really want God to use me,

and I’m not gonna be like

that prophet in the Bible.

I sure ain’t gonna go up

and ask for it, strike me,

God, come on.

I’m not gonna get out

in the next lightning storm

and say strike me and make me

walk funny so I can preach good.

That’s not what I’m saying.

I’m not volunteering

for none of that,

but since we’re all in it.

Oh, excuse me.

Look over at somebody acting

real sanctified right now

and say you’ve got wounds.

You’ve just got your bandages

on, but you’ve got your wounds.

Would you just raise your hand

and say, God, here’s my wounds,

here’s my hurts,

here’s my blood,

here’s my sweat,

here’s my tears,

here’s my turning and tossing,

here’s my worry,

here’s my fear,

here’s my depression,

here’s my wounds,

here’s my hurt,

here’s my bruise.

Would you use it?

♪ ♪

>> I believe today while

you’re viewing this program,

the Holy Spirit has

been speaking to you.

And it’s time for you today

to invite him and his great

presence into your life.

Just repeat this

prayer after me.

Say, “Lord Jesus,

cleanse me, heal me, help me.

I can’t help myself.

I can’t — I can’t get

myself free.

I need a deliverer.

I need a Savior.

I need You, Lord Jesus.

I bow to you.

I give you my life today.

Heal me, help me, lift me,

forgive me, cleanse me.

In Jesus’ name, I ask.

I speak healing

over every household today.

I speak the power of God

into every situation,

every person stressed,

every person who feels like

you’re at the end of your rope,

every person listening to me

that you just feel like you’re

out of options and you don’t

know where to turn.

It’s not by chance

you’re watching this program.

He’s still the answer.

His name is Jesus.

Speak that name.

Speak it and peace comes

wherever that name is invoked.

In Jesus’ name,

I speak health and healing

and comfort and angels

of God around your life,

in Jesus’ name.

And I want to welcome you

to the family of God.

I can’t tell you how excited

we are that you just made

the major decision,

the most important decision

in your life to follow

Jesus Christ and accept Him

as your Lord and Savior.

Fill out our Salvation Form.

You can go there

and we’ll send you, free,

a 21-day devotional to help

you in your new

relationship with Jesus.

You don’t have to walk alone.

We got online church

and online campus,

all of that,

and it’ll feed your soul.

And as many of you know,

God has lead us to work closely

with the nation

and the people of Israel

that border the Gaza Strip

in an area called Eshkol.

They’re constantly under attack.

That’s why this ministry

has been building fortified

buildings for the families

of this region of Israel.

In fact, during a recent

escalation on the border

of Israel, these bomb shelters

were used to keep families,

women, and children safe.

Will you help me today bring

comfort to the people of Israel?

When you give to this ministry,

our pledge to you is we do three

things with the resources.

We unashamedly preach

the Gospel of Jesus Christ

to 200 nations,

just like you’ve heard

in this telecast today.

Secondly, we produce

inspirational resources.

We put out all kinds of material

that encourage people

in their walk with God.

And thirdly, we go above

and beyond to support projects

just like this one,

and the nations of the world

that need it the most.

So today, do your part,

and I know God will bless you.

Thank you, and we’ll see

you next time right here.

>> Israel is under constant

attack from its neighbors

on the Gaza Strip.

When Hamas shoots rockets,

sirens will sound,

giving these families

of Israel only 15 seconds

to find safe shelter.

Because of this, these children

and their families live

in a constant state

of stress and trauma.

But there is hope.

Thanks to your generous support,

Jentezen Franklin Media

Ministries continues to bring

comfort to the nation of Israel.

The construction is almost

completed at the Eshkol Region

Kingdom Playschool Center.

Here children have a safe place

to go to school with

peace of mind,

knowing they are safe

from terror attacks.

To keep these children safe

when they are home,

we have been building

nearby bomb shelters.

Construction has been completed

of two bomb shelters,

and they have already been used

as a safe place to run during

the most recent escalation.

With a third shelter almost

completed, we are answering

the call to build a fourth bomb

shelter in the Eshkol Region.

These buildings do more than

bring safety to the community.

They will be used for trauma

therapy that children

and families desperately need.

Every time you help us break

ground at a bomb shelter,

you are helping us break

the chains of fear in these

precious people’s lives.

Thank you for your support

of Jentezen Franklin Media

Ministries as we fulfill

Biblical prophecy and bring

comfort to the people of Israel.

Call now or go online to see

how you can bring help

and healing to hurting children

in Israel today.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

>> We hope you’ve enjoyed this

teaching by Jentezen Franklin

and thank you for your continued

support of this ministry.

Your prayers and financial

support make these

programs possible.

♪ ♪