In recent weeks I have found God searching my own heart. I've gone before Him many times and said, "Oh God, show me what it means to be a broken person, to live a lifestyle of brokenness." What are some of the characteristics, the evidences of a proud, unbroken spirit? Let me just share with you some that have come to my own heart as I have waited on the Lord.
Proud people, but broken people. Proud people are self-righteous. They have a critical, fault-finding spirit. They look at everyone else's faults with a microscope but their own with a telescope, and they look down on others. But broken people are compassionate. They can forgive much because they know how much they have been forgiven. They think the best of others, and they esteem all others better than themselves.
Proud people have an independent, self-sufficient spirit, but broken people have a dependent spirit and recognize their need for others. Proud people have to prove that they're right, but broken people are willing to yield the right to be right. Proud people claim rights and have a demanding spirit, but broken people yield their rights and have a meek spirit. Proud people are self-protective of their time, their rights, and their reputation, but broken people are self-denying.
Proud people desire to be served, but broken people are motivated to serve others. Proud people desire to be a success, but broken people are motivated to be faithful and to make others a success.
Proud people desire for self-advancement, but broken people desire to promote others. Proud people have a drive to be recognized, to be appreciated. They're wounded when others are promoted and they are overlooked. Broken people have a sense of their own unworthiness. They're thrilled that God would use them at all in any ministry. They're eager for others to get the credit, and they rejoice when others are lifted up.
Proud people have a subconscious feeling, "This ministry is privileged to have me and my gifts." They think of what they can do for God, but broken people have that heart attitude that says, "I don't deserve to have any part in this ministry." They know that they have nothing to offer God except the life of Jesus flowing through their broken lives.
Proud people feel confident in how much they know, but broken people are humbled by how very much they have to learn. Proud people are self-conscious, but broken people are not concerned with self at all.
Proud people keep others at arm’s length, but broken people are willing to risk getting close to others and to take the risks of loving intimately. Proud people are quick to blame others, but broken people accept personal responsibility and can see where they were wrong in the situation.
Proud people are unapproachable, but broken people are easy to be entreated. Proud people are defensive when criticized, but broken people receive criticism with a humble, open spirit. Proud people are concerned with being respectable. They're concerned with what others think, and they're working to protect their own image and reputation. But broken people are concerned with being real. What they care about and what matters to them is not what others think but what God knows, and they're willing to die to their own reputation.
Proud people find it difficult to share their spiritual needs with others, but broken people are willing to be open and transparent with others as God directs. Proud people, when they have sinned, want to be sure that no one finds out. Their instinct is to cover up, but broken people, once they've been broken, they don't care who knows or who finds out. They are willing to be exposed because they have nothing to lose.
Proud people have a hard time saying, "I was wrong. Will you please forgive me?" But broken people are quick to admit their failure and to seek forgiveness when necessary. When confessing their sin, proud people tend to deal in generalities, but broken people are able to deal under the conviction of God's Spirit to acknowledge specifics.
Proud people are concerned about the consequences of their sin, but broken people are grieved over the cause, the root of their sin. Proud people are remorseful over their sin, sorry that they got found out or caught. But broken people are truly, genuinely repentant over their sin, which is evidenced in the fact that they forsake that sin.
When there's a misunderstanding or conflict in relationships, proud people wait for the other to come and ask forgiveness, but broken people take the initiative to be reconciled. They race to the cross. They see if they can get there first, no matter how wrong the other may have been.
Proud people compare themselves with others and feel worthy of honor, but broken people compare themselves to the holiness of God and feel a desperate need for His mercy. Proud people are blind to their real heart condition, but broken people walk in the light. Proud people don't think they have anything to repent of, but broken people realize that they have need of a continual heart attitude of repentance.
Proud, unbroken people don't think they need revival, but they're sure that everyone else does. Whereas humble, broken people continually sense their need for a fresh encounter with God, for a fresh filling of His Holy Spirit.
Now why would, with that long list, why would anyone want to be broken, anymore than we would want to sign up for suffering or surgery? Well, we learn from the Scripture that brokenness brings blessedness. Brokenness brings blessedness. Jesus said, "Blessed are the broken ones, those who are poor in spirit" (see Matt. 5:3).
What kind of blessings does brokenness bring? Well, we heard from the verse that Chuck read earlier that God draws near to the broken (see Ps. 34:18). He lifts up those who are humbled (see Ps. 147:6). We're told that God stiff-arms the proud. He resists them (see James 4:6). He keeps them at a distance, but He comes close to, even as the father of that prodigal son drew that repentant, broken son to his chest and embraced him, we find that our Heavenly Father draws near to the heart of those who are broken. You want to get close to God?
God draws near to the place of brokenness.
We find that brokenness brings the blessing of new life being released. Jesus said that, "if that grain of wheat does not fall onto the ground, and its outer shell is not broken; if it does not die it will abide alone" (see John 12:24).
Listen. Loneliness, I have found in my own life, is often an evidence of unbrokenness. Because when I am willing for that hard outer shell to be broken, then the life of Jesus can be released through me, and there is reproduction; there is fruit produced in the lives of others.
Of course, the ultimate picture of that brokenness is the Lord Jesus, who we have worshiped this morning. As He said, “This is my body which is broken for you” (see 1 Cor. 11:24). On that cross, as He experienced and endured the brokenness of fellowship with His Heavenly Father, from whom He had never known a moment's separation, and as He took upon Himself the full weight of our sin and was broken on our behalf,
His death released eternal life for us. So when we are willing to be broken, His abundant life flows through us to others.
Brokenness will bring to us an increased capacity for love and worship. I think back to that sinner woman in Luke chapter 7. She had been forgiven much, so she was able to love much. I see in that woman an abandon in her relationship with Jesus that I desire for myself.
She was oblivious to the rejection or the thoughts or the disapproval of anyone around her. All that mattered to her was Jesus. And in her worship and in her love, there was such a lavishness, an extravagance of freedom. That's because there's a cycle in the ways of God that brokenness leads to genuine repentance. Genuine repentance leads to forgiveness. Forgiveness will produce in my life freedom from the guilt, freedom from the bondage of myself and my sin.
When there is that new freedom birthed through brokenness and repentance and forgiveness, that freedom will produce a new capacity for love and worship and a capacity to love others, to love the unlovable, to love God, to worship God.
And, of course, that worship and that love of God lead us always back to new levels of brokenness, leading to greater and deeper repentance, to new forgiveness, to newfound freedom and increased capacity for love and for worship, to love the people we work with, to love the people we live with. Why is our capacity so limited? Perhaps it's because we are not living in brokenness, for brokenness yields that wonderful fruit of increased capacity for love and worship.
And then brokenness brings increased fruitfulness. For you see, God uses things and people that are broken. There are so many wonderful illustrations of this in the Scripture.
- It's when Jacob's natural strength was broken at Peniel that God was able to clothe him with true spiritual power.
- It's when the rock at Horeb was struck and broken by Moses' rod that the water flowed out to quench the thirst of the people.
- It’s when 300 people broke their pitchers that the light of the lanterns within shone forth.
- It’s when the little boy's five loaves were broken—I tell you, I had a picture of this yesterday driving by the picnic. I said, “This had to look like something of the feeding of the 5,000. I imagined Jesus taking those five loaves, but when they were broken in the hands of the Master, they were sufficiently multiplied to feed the multitudes with abundance left over.
- Brokenness brings increased fruitfulness. It's when Mary's alabaster box was broken that the fragrance was released and filled the whole house.
- And as we've said, it's when Jesus' body was broken on Calvary that eternal life was released for the salvation of the world.
We’ve read about the Welsh revival in 1905. The song that was sung throughout the Welsh revival, sung through lips that represented broken and contrite hearts, was that chorus, “Bend me, lower, lower, down at Jesus’ feet.”
Through that brokenness, God released a great flood tide of His Spirit that encompassed that whole land and brought untold revival blessing to the world.
Continues at... http://www.reviveourhearts.com/radio/roh/today.php?pid=10939
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