Power Word #5: “Brokenness”

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28–30)

Brokenness and humility are unpopular subjects for a lot of Christians.

In our culture today, people are being told all the time to be strong and pump themselves up emotionally and mentally. However, God wants us to know about this power word—brokenness and humility.

In Matthew 11:28–30, you can see the character of Jesus, how He is gentle, lowly, and humble in heart. Coming to Jesus, you can find trust, and in that trust, you will have rest. You are going to find rest in your soul when you come to the Lord in brokenness and humility.

God has a yoke, and there is a time when a yoke is good. For example, a yoke is good when it has to do with God’s discipline. Jesus tells us that we must take His yoke upon us, which is God’s purpose for our lives, and learn from Him.

In the Old Testament, God called Moses from the midst of the cloud, and Moses went up into it. During that time, the yoke of the Lord was not popular with the children of Israel because they had experienced a yoke of slavery upon them. In this age, we all want to be free to do our own thing. We do not want to be bound by anything, but there is a godly yoke that we need.

Moses was set free from Egypt, and he went out of Egypt with his people. The children of Israel thought they were not going to be slaves anymore (see Exod. 14). However, God wanted them to have His instruction so that they would be protected by Him. God wanted them to follow His laws and rules, and walk with Him. The Israelites did not want that because they were very rebellious, and that was why God called them stiff-necked (see Exod. 32:9). Being stiff-necked comes from not yielding to the yoke, not yielding to the discipline of the Lord, and the children of Israel were an example of that.

The New Testament reminds us that, because of the Israelite’s disobedience and unbelief, they did not enter into the Promised Land, and they missed out.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation,” And said, “They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.” So I swore in My wrath, “They shall not enter My rest.” (Hebrews 3:7–11)

Moses had to be yoked to God, and God told him to go up on the mountain, but the children of Israel did not want to go with him. Because they would not go, it ended up causing many problems. It took years and years for the children of Israel to go into the Promised Land. The entire first generation that came out of Egypt never got to enter in. A journey that should have only taken a few days to reach the Promised Land instead took years.

We need to take heed of what the book of Hebrews is telling us. We do not have to stay in Egypt through unbelief and disobedience. We can go into the Promised Land, and we can enter into the rest in the New Testament through Jesus Christ. Jesus has been designated as the new and living way into the Holy of Holies. We do not resist God.

Empowered by Humility

One of the secrets of the Kingdom is found in 1 Peter:6–7, where we read:

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

You need to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. When you are under authority, God’s hand is over you. When you submit yourself to God, then God is going to exalt you in due season. In God’s timing, He is going to raise you up, and you will be promoted. However, the first thing you must do is humble yourself under His mighty hand.

The other thing you need to do is let go of your problems. Your promotion will happen when you cast all your cares upon God, “for He cares for you” (1 Pet. 5:7). You have to release them all to God. People today take so much pride in trying to do things themselves and being self-sufficient, but as a Christian, you cannot be self-sufficient. You have to be relying solely on your Father God, casting your cares upon Him, knowing that He cares for you. In essence, you are saying to the Father, “I need You, I cannot carry this alone. I cannot do this by myself.”

You must remind yourself every day, through brokenness and humility, that without Him, “you can do nothing,” as Jesus is the vine and we are the branches (John 15:5). These two traits of brokenness and humility a power word that is coming back into the Church and our vocabulary. This is a power word that satan fears. He fears people being broken and humble because he knows that it is through humility that God empowers His people. Humility and authority are related, and they are not contrary to each other. A person who understands authority submits to authority, and then they have great authority. If you want to walk in authority, you have to be submitted to God. God’s authority will work through you when you are humble.

If you are broken, if you are devastated right now, you are a prime candidate for God to come and live with you. God will come to encourage you, build you up, promote you, and revive your heart. God dwells with these kinds of people. God has a purpose and a plan for everything that happens. God does not do bad things to you, but He uses these times when you feel broken and humble. Such times become a perfect opportunity for God to come into your life and revive you.

Humility over Humiliation

If you humble yourself, you are going to have honor, but if you do not, your pride will end in humiliation (see Prov. 29:23 NLT). Nobody likes to be humiliated. God says that if you humble yourself, then you are going to get honor, and you will not be judged. I would rather humble myself and let God honor me and promote me than try to do it on my own.

Even in your relationships, God is telling you to be dressed in humility and relate to one another that way because God opposes those who are proud.

In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you, dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Peter 5:5 NLT)

Relationally, we have to be humble and treat others as better than ourselves (see Phil. 2:3).

Escaping the World’s Corruption

When God made humanity, He made us in His image (see Gen. 1:27). With the fall of man, there is now a curse operating, and only through Jesus Christ are we redeemed spiritually. From the moment that we accept Jesus as Lord, our spirits are born again. Our souls—our minds, wills, and emotions—must be transformed by the renewing of our minds through the Word of God (see Rom. 12:2). Since we are in the fallen state in our flesh and our minds, we often cannot comprehend what God has done for us, and that creates discrepancies. There are discrepancies between what we feel in our spirits should be happening and what is actually happening. What is established as truth and what should be happening to us do not measure up, and this creates the discrepancy that we can sense in our spirits.

When we are born again, we know what should be happening, but it is not happening because we are living in a fallen world. It is only through brokenness and humility that we can escape the corruption that is in the world caused by lust (2 Pet. 1:4). The spirit and the flesh war against each other, and they are enemies (see Rom. 8:5–11). There is a war going on all the time, and even in our minds, we oppose ourselves. Because of this, brokenness and humility must come back into the Church and our Christian vocabulary.

To escape the corruption that is in the world caused by lust, we have to be partakers of the divine nature available through the promises of God. We must implement the promises of God that have been given to us into our lives. When we accept them humbly and accept the engrafted Word into us, then we will prosper in every area (see James 1:21–25).

Humble yourself before God and ask Him for help, and then accept His help. In that brokenness and in that humility, you will receive from God, and you can escape the curse that is in the world. You can escape the corruption that is in the world caused by lust through humility and brokenness because you accept the engrafted Word that has been spoken into yourself.

You will continually struggle unless you take the yoke of God upon you and accept discipline. If you do not accept the Word of God into you and become humble and broken before Him, you will wear yourself out with your struggle. Then you will not see the results that you should, and you will be discouraged. These kinds of things must go from a Christian’s life.

We must humble ourselves and not think of ourselves more highly than we should. When we consider others more than ourselves, and we serve others, then God comes in, and He provides for us in every area of our lives. Sometimes, we hold onto things that we are supposed to give away, and the reason we are supposed to give is that God wants to give us everything. He wants to redo everything completely, and He is looking to see if we will be humble and obedient to listen to Him and give.

God is looking to see if we will give like the woman with the two mites (see Luke 21:1–4). The widow gave everything that she had, and she did not do it out of obligation, but because she loved God. Jesus said that the woman was going to receive her reward. The widow had given more than anyone else because she had given all that she had, and that only happened in humility and in brokenness. If you are doing this for any other reason, it will not be effective, and you have not come to the end of yourself.

Jesus gave me a teaching, and He told me to tell people that they need to come to the end of themselves and do it quickly. You need to draw a line in your life, and that line indicates where you end and God begins. What is going to occur after you come to an end of yourself is that your next step becomes a supernatural event. I saw that people are delaying this death to self, and because they are delaying, the supernatural events in their lives are not taking place.

Many people ask me to help them to move into the supernatural. I tell them that God is supernatural, and everything about Him is supernatural. However, we live down here in this natural world. Many people cannot escape the corruption that is in the world through lust because they have not humbled themselves. They have not let God discipline them by putting the yoke of God on them as Jesus said and walking with Him.

Dividing Flesh and Spirit

I do not want you to have to go through this process any longer than you should. You must get to the end of yourself as quickly as possible, and the Word of God will do that for you. The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit, and the Spirit of God is going to rightly divide between your soul and spirit (see Heb. 4:12). Whatever is of you is going to be on one side, and whatever is of God is going to be on the other side. Until that sword comes and separates, there is no way you are going to know the difference. It is only the Spirit of God and the Word of God that can divide your soul from your spirit.

As I’ve said a few times before, your soul is your mind, will, and emotions. Your spirit is the God part of you that God breathed into you when He made you a living spirit. God breathed and made you a living soul as well, but your spirit is the part that becomes born again, and that is the real you. You are in a body, and you have a spirit and a soul. There are three parts to you. I call your body your earth suit. Your soul ties your spirit to your body so that you can enjoy what is happening in your spirit.

Man fell in the garden. When you were born, you were born into this fallen world, and there you learned things that were not right to God. Your soul has responded to what it has been told, influenced, and taught. When you become born again, your spirit has to become the dominant factor in your life, or your emotions and your mind will rule you. Brokenness and humility are your escape mechanisms. They will get you out from under the control of your flesh, and the control of your mind, will, and emotions. Brokenness will cause you to humble yourself and start to yield to the Spirit of God.

I know that you want to humble yourself and yield to the Spirit. There is something that you can do to help yourself, and it is fasting (see Matt. 6:16–18). Fasting works because your body needs food to survive, and in your mind, you think that, if you do not have food to eat, you will not survive. When you fast, the first thing to realize is that you are not going to die. You can fast for days without ever affecting your body except maybe losing a little weight. It is not until you get past forty days that your body deteriorates.

When you fast, what you are doing is shutting down the voice of your body and your mind, and then all that is left is your spirit. When you fast, your spirit comes to the forefront, and then you can hear from God more clearly. You are not trying to move God to do something by fasting, but what you are doing is getting yourself to a place where you can receive from God. You want to hear from God and become more effective. Fasting is more about getting you in a place where you can encounter God and get things done, things that would not be done if you had not silenced the voice of your body.

Fasting puts you in a place where your body is under submission and you learn to focus on the will of God. When you fast, you should always have the Word of God in your mind and have your flesh under submission. You are doing that by not eating. Your spirit will come to the fore because you have placed yourself in a position where you can hear from God. God will answer you because you are listening and are ready to receive from Him.

I have found that, when you have this brokenness and humility, you come to the end of yourself. Then, all of a sudden, the supernatural is right there, and from then on, you are very thankful. You become very thankful because you become mindful of what God has done for you. You realize that in your powerlessness, God comes in and makes you powerful. He causes you to triumph over your enemies. It is a process of you being broken and being humbled, and then being thankful.

When you are thankful, it causes you to start to walk in a new power, and satan does not want this to happen. Satan was lifted up in pride, and he was blinded. Because of that pride, he fell. “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov. 16:18). The enemy does not want us to talk about brokenness and humility, and this is a power word that is being taken out of our vocabulary by satan. We must focus on laying our lives down and saying, “Father, not my will, but Yours be done” (see Luke 22:42). Being in submission brings God’s power.

There is promotion coming when you humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. He is going to promote you in due season, and He is going to lift you up. God is on your side, and He wants you to be submissive to Him. God wants you to depend upon Him for everything. He is your God, and He loves you. God puts you through the fire because He wants you to be pure gold. God wants you to be able to walk in authority on this earth. He wants you to display and manifest the glory of God in these last days. Satan fears the power word of brokenness and humility, and brokenness and humility should be evident in the lives of every Christian.