Brokenness

Our idea of usefulness and being equipped or readiness for
service is quite different from God’s idea of usefulness. Our idea is you got
to be indoctrinated, educated or taught, you must have a Book in your head, you
need to be qualified, you need to be knowledgeable, you must be equipped with
all kinds of skills like being able to speak well. You must go to Bible school
so that you can do the job or else you are not useful. That was not Jesus’
idea.

 Jesus called ordinary people, despised by the world just
fisherman, nothing special. He called them. He didn’t call them for their
talents or for their wisdom or their knowledge. He called them because inside
of them their was willingness. He handpicked them.

 Jesus said no you come here I guide you. I will guide you
every step of the way and you will never become clever. You will only become
useful the more broken you become. We want perfection in skills and in
knowledge. Christ wants our perfection in our knowledge of Him. The
prerequisite for discipleship is: deny yourself, just lay yourself down as
dead. Deny your wisdom that you carry around in your head, your Bible
knowledge, your skills everything. Jesus will not use that which we have to
offer. All Jesus wants of us is brokenness and willingness. If we are full of
ourselves and our own knowledge our own insight and our own abilities we are
not useful for the Kingdom of God. God must first break us down, teach us how
utterly useless we are.

Jesus didn’t display His own initiatives. He only did what
the Father told Him to do. He only said what the Father told Him to say. That
is why the Words of Christ are not His own Words. They are the Words of God
Almighty. People that disregard the Words of Christ are foolish enough to think
that they will get away with it. Those are the Words of God my friend Jesus
said nothing on His own initiative.

When Jesus said follow Me, He also meant that, that we must
follow Him. Deny ourselves our own knowledge everything self and put Jesus on
the throne of your heart. When Jesus says to you follow Me, He means: deny
yourself, deny your mind your clever ideas and I will come and put My Spirit
inside of you and then you use your ears and you start to listen getting
spiritual ears and you start listening to the Holy Spirit and if you refuse to
listen to the Holy Spirit then you useless to the Kingdom of God.

That is a terrible blow for clever people. Most of them
never learned that and most of them never ever become useful for the Kingdom of
God. Only those who empty themselves, like Christ emptied Himself utterly,
totally, those who empty themselves are useful for the Kingdom of God. Our
brokenness and our willingness when we lay down ourselves our own ambitions our
own life everything us, only that makes us a suitable instrument in the Hand of
God because then only are we willing to listen to the Holy Spirit and obey.
When we still have our own ideas, we are not interested in what Jesus says and
we will not go where He sends us, we will not listen to His Holy Spirit.

If god tells people something and they don’t find it in the
Bible they refuse to accept it. So do you expect God to speak to you when you
are wise in your own mind and you will not listen to the Holy Spirit of Christ
inside of you. Do you think He will come and argue with you? No my friend, He
will just ignore you. Because He is God, He is God Almighty. How do you know it
is Jesus speaking to you? You’ve got to trust Him, if you do not trust Him you
will never follow Him. And that is why so extremely few, few, few will enter
the Kingdom of Heaven because very few are willing to deny themselves trust
Christ and follow Him.

  Paul knew this, we
read in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 “And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come
with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of
God. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and
Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much
trembling, 4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words
of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your
faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”

 The only way that we get to know the power of God is
when we deny ourselves. When we fully put our trust in Christ when we empty
ourselves of ourselves and come at the foot of the cross, bow down before Jesus
and say: Lord please teach me, Lord please show me. We must empty ourselves of
ourselves and trust in Christ fully. When we are still full of self, Christ has
not place in us. We must empty this vessel, Empty your mind and then only can
the Spirit of God come in and guide us. The Spirit of God will not compete with
our spirit or any other spirit. We must avail ourselves to Christ and then He
will come in His fullness and in His power and then the power of God will work
through us. The decision is ours, very few, very few will enter the Kingdom of
Heaven very few are willing to take up their cross daily, deny themselves and
follow Jesus Christ.