Manifesting The Broken Christ

I remember a dear Sister who I know who is in her 80's now, who was always a very active person, always "on the go." She was very strong in her faith. She injured her back and it almost completely incapacitated her for a year.

She later told me that she believed that God had a purpose in everything, and that the time when she was unable to do what she ordinarily did was at first a challenge and then ultimately a blessing. She said she saw God teaching her through that experience, even though she was in her 80s. God is so good.

He is breaking us all, my friends. We must all be broken. Broken before God and broken before man.

Jesus said "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Myself."


We all know this passage, but recently I was praying over it and the issue of repentance and God breaking His people so that He might use them for His glory.

Our Lord spoke to me about how it was not the "Risen Christ" that needed to be lifted up so that He could draw all men unto Himself. It was the "Broken Christ" that needed to be lifted up.

This is the Christ that we must manifest to the lost. The Risen Christ has no meaning to those who are lost. The Broken Christ is the image which the Holy Spirit uses to convict men of their sin and draw them unto salvation through Christ Jesus.

We must look at the "Broken Christ" upon the cross, God was telling me. We must know what God's Word says He looked like upon the cross, and we must walk as a manifestation of that in this life. Consider:

If they see the Blood of Jesus Christ and its forgiveness for their sin, and see the Water of the Holy Spirit and its Truth that can make them free flowing from within us (Christ's side was pierced and blood and water flowed out), then the lost will see the Broken Christ in us and be drawn unto Him.

If they see our bones laid bare in open repentance for our sin and the flesh being stripped from our lives through that process (Christ looked down from the cross "and could see all His bones" because they had whipped His flesh away), then the lost will see the Broken Christ in us and be drawn unto Him.

If they see the deep agony we sometimes experience, and yet see that we - in the midst of it all - look to our sides to reach out to one who is hoping for salvation in the last moments of their lives (Christ reached out to the thief on the cross beside Him though He was dying, and made sure that Mary was cared for before He gave up the Ghost), then the lost will see the Broken Christ in us and be drawn unto Him.

If they see that we have ceased trying to be of this denomination or that or this house church network or that, have stopped trying to be "church" and start to live and move and breathe as believers only (when they finally hung Christ on the cross, God's Word says that he had been beaten so much that he no longer had any "form")"), then the lost will see the Broken Christ in us and be drawn unto Him.

If they see us stop trying to be a "real church" or a "cool church" or a "popular church" and start to live and move and breathe as believers only (when they finally hung Christ on the cross, God's Word says that he had been beaten so much that He "had no beauty that we should desire Him"), then the lost will see the Broken Christ in us and be drawn unto Him.

There is more, but you get the picture, friends. This has been pressing upon my heart most fervently.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:18 (NIV)

For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.
For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"[a]made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.2 Corinthians 4:5-7 (NIV)

May Christ be lifted up as we are transformed by God's Holy Spirit in our Spirits, minds and bodies, so that the lost will see Christ and His sacrifice for us all upon the cross, and be drawn unto Life in Him.