Studying Mathew last night, I felt the Lord reiterating the message of the broken that I’d received in my heart many months back and that ultimately led me to create this site and this mission – Broken is Beautiful.
Here’s what I see – and I’ll do my best to explain this and I pray the Holy Spirit give me the words to express the vision he’s placed on my heart.
In Mathew 21, Jesus said that “THE STONE the builders rejected will become the cornerstone.” The builders are the Jews – the Oracles of God that were chosen to be entrusted with the word of God, (Romans 3:2). They rejected Christ, (the stone), they were offended by Christ and crucified Our Lord and Savior. Their identity is illuminated in the parables Jesus told in the book of Mathew (21:33) about the husbandmen that were entrusted with the vineyard. When the Lord sent His servants to the husbandmen, they beat these servants and killed them, (these servants are the prophets). And after that, God sent HIS SON to them, and they then killed him too. So back to Jesus, who is THE STONE that was rejected by the builders, HE BECAME THE CORNERSTONE. Why is this so important? Well, Jesus tells the outcome for the builders (the Jews) and the function of the stone (Himself), in Mathew 21:43 & 44:
Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
What does it mean to fall on a stone? Well it says the outcome is to be broken by the stone. Try to stay with me on this and visualize yourself walking down a path.. You think you know where you’re going.. You think you know the right direction and you have no need to pull out a map and change a thing. Your life is fine just the way it is. Then suddenly, everything falls apart and you fall down. Unexpectedly and without warning, your life is shattered into pieces and you’re laying on the ground bloody, bruised and broken looking for a way to put yourself back together again. Where you land when you fall down becomes the crossroad of your journey. It’s where you’re going to cry out for help and seek to be healed and put back together again. For me, I can see this so completely looking at my own crossroad in my path… Looking back at the season where I fell down and was broken into a thousand pieces, there was no way to put my life back together again (not a way by the means of this world anyway). No one could fix me. No one could mend my broken heart and heal my wounds. That’s the place when I cried out to Him (truly cried out to Him) with all of my heart. That’s when I knew HE was the only way. That was the valley where I laid in darkness, searching for a light at the end of a tunnel that didn’t exist, except in HIM. He was my only Hope. He was my only option. He was the only answer as I laid there broken understanding with every fiber of my being that I needed a Savior. He was the cornerstone in my path and as I fell into a place of utter brokenness, I found myself laying on Him (leaning on Him) – Jesus and only JESUS. Mathew 21:44 comes to life in my heart as I see this place of transformation – the fall that left me broken – but securely fastened inside of my heart on the only Hope that exists – that Stone that brought me to my knees… Jesus.
So, what happens if you don’t fall on the stone? What happens if you never reach that place of brokenness that leads your heart to crying out to the Word of God? It’s hard to recognize that many of the things we perceive about life are not God’s ways. It seems opposite to think that being “broken” could be a blessing. But really think about these two scenarios that Jesus spoke of here in Mathew. Either we fall on JESUS or JESUS falls on us. And if Jesus (the Stone) falls on us, we are “grinded into powder”. Is that not a description of death? To return to the dust. To be ashes underneath the feet of the Saints of the Most High…. disintegrated into powder..
Broken is beautiful because it’s the PATH to Jesus.. Broken is beautiful because it’s the process of transformation inside of our hearts. Those that don’t need a doctor, don’t chase after a physician, much like the ones who followed Jesus as he walked this earth – they followed HIM because they needed Him – to be healed by Him, to be made whole by Him, to be set free by Him and to be put back together again by Him.
If you’re broken today and your heart deep down is calling out to the Lord for His help…. REJOICE! Understand that He’s chosen to refine you – that He’s drawing you out of this world in order to draw you into Him. He will not let you love this place, depend on this place or call this place your home because in this season of your life He’s showing you how to LOVE and depend on HIM. REJOICE because He’s working on you and molding you into the creature he designed you to be. Rejoice because He has chosen to show you that you have NO RIGHTEOUSNESS, NO ANSWERS, NO SALVATION unless you are inside of CHRIST and that’s only possible by the Faith God gives you in Jesus “that you may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;” (Philippians 3:10). Rejoice because He loves you so much, he has chosen you to be broken in the temporary things, in order to save you from being crushed eternally – grinded into a powder.
Broken is Beautiful…. The caterpillar has to die to it’s fleshly desires in order to become a butterfly.
I love you all. Please keep your sights set on the eternal hope of Jesus and know that every pain you face is strengthening you, refining you and transforming you into a vessel that houses the unconditional Love of God, His eternal WORD Jesus Christ, and His Holy Spirit. If you’re hurting today, I pray that you search your heart for the desire of Christ and the help that ONLY HE can give to us. I pray that you are set free from the lies of the enemy – that you will not think your pain is a punishment that somehow means you are not favored or not worthy of God but instead is the LOVE of God, setting this cornerstone in your path so that you may find REAL LIFE… the only way to life… Jesus Christ.