Being Broken

Broken is not actually a positive word. For when something is broken, then that usually means we have to fix it. But the beautiful thing about us being broken, is that Jesus Christ must come and fix us himself. And that means working on us, and shaping us, and fixing us to be new again in him. But fixing something that is badly broken takes a lot of work and a lot of time. Therefore, Jesus is still working on me, and fixing me. In order to be fixed, we must first come to the place that we are shattered, broken to little pieces, and then ground to powder. We have to be that broken so that we are beyond repair. God uses us when we are broken. In fact, thats when he can use us the most. For we are fully relying on him to help us. 

I have been reading a book called 'The Calvary Road.' by Roy Hession. I have been so encouraged reading it, so I decided to pull out a few snippets from the first chapter about being broken. 

"To be broken is the beginning of Revival. It is painful, it is humiliating, but it is the only way. It is being 'Not I, but Christ,' and a 'C' is a bent 'I'. The Lord Jesus cannot live in us fully and reveal himself through us until the proud self within us is broken. This simply means that the hard, un-yielding self, which justifies itself, wants its own way, stands up for its rights, and seeks its own glory, at last bows its head to God's will, admits its wrong, gives up its own way to Jesus, surrenders its rights, and discards its own glory, that the Lord Jesus might have all and be all. In other words, it is dying to self and self attitudes."  The Lord cannot live in us, and work through us, until we first die to self and self attitiudes. 

"It is so often self that tries to live the Christian life(the mere fact that we use the word 'try' indicates that it is self who has the responsibility). It is self, too, who is often doing Christian work. It is always self who gets irritable, envious, resentful, critical, and worried. It is self who is hard and unyielding in its attitude to others. It is self who is shy, self-conscious, and reserved. No wonder we need breaking. As long as self is in control, God can do little with us, for the fruit of the spirit, with which God longs to fill us, is the complete opposite of the hard, unbroken spirit within us and presupposes that self has been crucified."

"Brokeness in daily experience is simply the response of humility to the conviction of God, and inasmuch as this conviction is continuous, we shall need to be broken continually. This can be very costly, when we see all the yielding of rights and selfish interests that this will involve, and the confessions and restitutions that sometimes may be necessary. For this reason, we are not likely to be broken except at the cross of Jesus,. The willingness of Jesus to be broken for us is the all-compelling motive in our being broken, too." 

"We see Him taking on the form of a servant, willing to have no rights of his own, no home of his own, no possessions of his own, willing to let men revile him and not revile again, willing to let men tread on him and not retaliate or defend himself. We see him broken as he meekly goes to Calvary to become men's scapegoat by bearing their sins in his own body on the tree. "

"Those who have been in tropical lands tell us that there is a big difference between a snake and a worm when you try to strike at them. The snake rears itself up, hisses, and trys to strike back...a true picture of self. But a worm offers no resistence, it allows you to do what you like with it, kick it or squash it under your heel...a picture of true brokeness."

"Christ now calls us to take our rightful place as worms for him."

"But dying to self is not a thing we do once for all. There may be initial dying when God first shows us these things, but ever after, it will be a constant dying, for only so can the Lord Jesus be revealed constantly through us. All day long the choice will be before us in a thousand ways. It will mean a constant yielding to those around us, for our yieldedness to God is measured by our yieldedness to man. Every humiliation, everyone who tries and vexes us, is God's way of breaking us, so that there is a yet deeper channel in us for the Life of Christ."

"You see, the only life that pleases God, and that can be victorious, is His life...never our life, no matter how hard we try. But inasmuch as our self-centered life is the exact opposite to his, we can never be filled with his life, unless we are prepared for God to bring our life constantly to death. And in that we must co-operate by our moral choice." But if our life is not broken, then we have no need of his life, therefore resulting in never pleasing the one who dies for us.