BROKENNESS

A word that basically encompasses both HUMILITY and REPENTANCE is BROKENNESS! Along with brokenness will be removal of junk and thorough cleaning of all. When we yield to the breaking, the Lord takes the pieces and places them back together in such a way as to make us the vessel He originally designed us to be (Psa. 139)... and fills us with His life!

Broken things often have cracks which never disappear...weak areas that God is able to flow forth from our life to others making us strongest in our broken places. II Cor. 12:9-10. This makes us finally useful to the Savior; yet we work to avoid brokenness.

As the Lord works on breaking us, we work to protect ourselves. You must choose to relinquish your life to the shattering which needs to take place.

Romans 7:18 Brokenness requires recognition of inadequacy. John 5:30...If the perfect Son of God is not able to do anything on His own, who in the world do we think we are to want to be independent of the Lord.

Our decision must be to turn to God and willingly offer our treasured life with upturned palms. This surrender is entirely individual, totally voluntary and cannot be demanded or coerced. I Cor. 2:9 The Lord has prepared blessings beforehand for those who follow Christ's command to deny self and follow Him.

The things that really come between us and God are PRIDE AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY. Independence is what drives us away...we want to control our lives!

What do you give yourself to? Because of varied interests, we give parts of ourselves to many different people and things...even church activities rather than to the Lord. To not surrender is to deny Christ and not yourself. Luke 9:23

Are you entrenched in the life of self? self-comfort, self-sconscious, self-pleasing, and self-willed? Romans 8:8 explains why we fail. Yet, if we HUMBLE ourselves, realize we cannot do anything and surrender to Him...utterly dependent, seemingly impossible things will begin to happen Luke 1:37 When you are utterly helpless, God will work gloriously.

Nothing more and nothing less is required: surrender of your SELF to God. We are to hand back to the Creator the self given to us by Him when we were born. This is requesting the one and only thing we really own: our SELF.

CONFLICT: We surrender time, loyalty, trust, service, money, etc. God wants all that PLUS - YOU!

When you surrender, you have access to Christ's resources. Col. 1:29 Then we receive God's grace = the desire and power to do His will. Gal. 2:20

Eternity = where we will live forever; with the Lord or separated from the Lord. Eternal life is Christ and we have the opportunity to live that life from day to day as we depend on God.

If you are frustrated, wanting all that has been described, but do not know how ... Ask God to reveal your heart to you and your need for Him. This is a necessity. Dependence on the Lord will not, can not, take place until we know, can see beyond a shadow of a doubt our great need for His life in and through us.

You must consent to extinction. YOU will no longer exist. Do not allow fear to prevent you from surrendering. If you surrender to Him entirely, then experienctially the old YOU is dead and experientially the new YOU only wants God's will.

Connecting to anything other than God, the true Power Source, provides us with sporadic bursts of negative energy. Surrender to Him and have a constant throb of energy, light and power.

Phil. 1:21...Let others see Jesus in and through you! The most basic need is to see our lack, our inadequacy, our true need for dependence. Eph. 3:20. Phil 1:6
Faith is counting so what is not so that it may be so because God said so! Typically we believe our doubts and doubt our beliefs -- the work of Satan. Born agains must choose to doubt our doubts and believe our beliefs -- the work of the Holy Spirit.