Is Being Broken Biblical?

Encouragement Letter.

(If you prefer to hear this message in audio form, I have included it above :)

“I am broken for Christ.”

This phrase would illicit a strong, passionate, and involuntary response in me that sounded a little like this: “Nope!  John 8:36 tells me “When the Son has set you free, you are free indeed!” Jesus set me free for freedom. He didn’t come to break me! He came to break the heavy weight of sin on my neck and give me a robe of royalty. The gospel tells me that I am adopted into the family of God. He came to bring me into SHALOM -nothing missing, nothing broken!” I can be a little passionate.

And… I know this is true, in the depth of my heart, but as I go deeper into a life wrapped in Christ He moves the soil of my heart to prepare me for deeper revelations and new levels.

I had experienced one of those weeks. The kind where everything was going wrong in my soul, my body, my expectations, and old insecurities came knocking to a door that was wide open. In hind sight I can see the subtle attacks on my peace at every corner but I kept believing I could handle them as they came. Instead they were handling me…and it was rough.

I deeply value my prayer time. There has come a point in my life that it is the air I need to breath every day. I have tasted the goodness of God in quiet times, separated from the world, and He always fills me there. This week was different because instead of being filled, I felt something break.

I am broken for Christ.

The Holy Spirit spoke to me: “Grief is a soul-cloud filled with water that is destined to rain. When you are saturated in prayer, the rain releases.”

I find it fascinating that when people cry they often apologize. Are tears a sign of failing? The ones who are there to see the tears don’t need an apology. But maybe it’s not them we are apologizing to.

Tears are a sign of surrender. Something has been released from a strong wall inside our soul; the wall has cracked and the container can no longer hold the substance within it. I believe we are apologizing to the part of us that built the wall.

Those precious drops contain wounds: Loss, lack, fear, pain, grief, anxious cares… Tears carry our wounds outside the walls…and down our cheeks. Tears are the manifestation of surrender and laying out what you cannot contain. Tears are precious to Jesus not because of the weakness, but the surrender of what we have called strong… apart from Him.

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8

Time spent with the perfect Shepherd of your soul, Jesus, will break down the self-made walls in your soul. He does want you perfectly free. He wants you in the wide open space of His protection and provision…not inside walls you have built.

For me, “I am broken for Christ” means every protective wall my natural soul has created is broken and has fallen. He becomes my only safe place. Now I say wholeheartedly, “Let it be, Lord!”

It is a universally human reaction to create a soul wall when there is pain, chaos, and fear. We start when we are children. The heart of our inner man is tender. Like newborn feet that over the years grow up and develop calluses when cut over and over by small, sharp rocks.

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. 1 Corinthians 6:19

That price was love.

As a believer in Jesus, God has come into your being. He is intimately familiar with every wall and the tender places inside those walls. He is aware of every soul wound.  When we cry out, “Lord, why do I do the things I do?” He can navigate the mazes we have created. As His Presence brings us rest, we hear from Him as He whispers to our innermost being, “I will protect you.” 

Think on this deeply: God promises, “I will protect you.”

The wounds whisper back, “But…where were You when______?

What if You don’t? I might never recover…

Isn’t it my job to protect and perfect my own life?”

As a believer in Jesus our work on earth is to enter into the place of believing every Word God spoke:

God is a safe house for the battered, a sanctuary…the moment you arrive, you relax; you’re never sorry you knocked. Psalm 9:9-10 MSG

He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. Psalm 121:7-8

The righteous (ones in Christ) cry out, and the Lord hears them; He delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:17-18

Gathering stones to build protective walls and provision walls was your work when you were separated from God. It is no longer your work. Your work is to simply believe Jesus (John 6:29). Your effort is to be daily found in God’s rest. Cease from your work. We stop fortifying the walls. Hebrews 4:10 is a profound truth that is the center pin of this revelation: “Anyone who enters God’s rest, also rests from their works.”

As we lay down our rocks, we enter into the cleft of God’s rock.

Holy Spirit speaks with the voice of Jesus and the heart of God. He says: “Come into the place I have carved out for you in My Rock. It is cut from My Holy Mountain. Everything you need is here. You build to protect but I AM Protection. Enter My rest as My rock molds around your life.

The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous (ones in Christ) run to it and are safe. Proverbs 18:10

Doubt is work. Faith is rest.

The world we live in is loud with voices telling us what to do to live life well. Jesus says, “I am the only voice you need”. Under every voice that pushes you to anxiously work for what you deserve is a low static frequency called death.

The thief of life has crafted statements that are designed to move you to work to protect yourself and provide. They steal your rest: “Hurry. No more time. Fix it. Set it up now. You don’t need anyone. If you don’t do it, no one will. Get validated and you win at life. Please people and they will not forget you. More money is more protection. Buy it. Stay current. You have one life, make it happen…”

The voice of the world is the voice of death. Death always has an end date.

But Jesus crushed the power of death with the stone. The stone rolled away from the grave and death had no power to harm Him.

And “as He is, so are we in this world”.

By living in God, love has been brought to its full expression in us so that we may fearlessly face the day of judgment, because all that Jesus now is, so are we in this world. 1 John 4:17 TPT

The same stone that crushed death, you now live within. It is abundant and eternal life. We can come into this rock and sit forward on its throne. It molds around our body like armor. This rock is where you hear the life-promises of your Savior and where you can speak with His authority. You are found in His rock and all other rocks are broken, even the ones you used to build around your heart. Jesus will gently show you the walls. Time in prayer will release them.

We are all going to new levels in Christ. To go higher you need to have barriers broken. It is unfamiliar and uncomfortable but when the natural abilities and strength break, new God given revelations take their place and the call of God on your life will be allowed to accelerate.

We are all in a battle but the work in the battle is not fighting for our victory, it is entering the place already established by our Savior called VICTORY.

The place in the Rock where God alone has become my Savior.

I’ll end this with a perfect scripture for this process from the book of Romans.

God considers all of humanity to be prisoners of their unbelief, so that He can unlock our hearts and show His tender mercies to all who come to Him.

What should be our response to God’s marvelous mercies?

I encourage you to surrender yourselves to God to be His sacred, living sacrifices. And live in holiness, experiencing all that delights His heart. For this becomes your genuine form of worship.

Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think.

This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in His eyes.

Romans 11:32, Romans 12:1-2 TPT

The Process:

You are susceptible to a self-made prison of unbelief.

so

He unlocks your heart with His love and mercy.

You surrender the walls.

then

He floods you with His Holiness.

You worship.

then

He transforms your mind.

You are empowered.

and

A beautiful life unfolds.

So the answer to the question is, Jesus does not break us, but when we surrender, He breaks off anything that we trust apart from Him.

To begin your prayer time today: “Jesus, I love you. Thank you for loving me. You said I could hear your voice clearly. I want to hear from you. Who do you say I am?”

Until next time.

Teresa L. Hoffman

Founder of Holy Ground Life, a ministry pointing you to Jesus. She is a pastor at Christian Faith Campus in Big Bear Lake, CA and the author of “The Jesus Handbook, Instructions for Life from the Red Letters” published by Trilogy/TBN.

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