The Calvary Road | Page 4

never
defeated. His power is boundless. And we, on our part, have only to get
into a right relationship with Him, and we shall see His power being
demonstrated in our hearts and lives and service, and His victorious life
will fill us and overflow through us to others. And that is Revival in its
essence.
If, however, we are to come into this right relationship with Him, the
first thing we must learn is that our wills must be broken to His will. To
be broken is the beginning of Revival. It is painful, it is humiliating, but
it is the only way. It is being "Not I, but Christ,"[footnote1:Gal. 2: 20.]
and a "C" is a bent "I." The Lord Jesus cannot live in us fully and
reveal Himself through us until the proud self within us is broken. This
simply means that the hard unyielding self, which justifies itself, wants
its own way, stands up for its rights, and seeks its own glory, at last
bows its head to God's will, admits its wrong, gives up its own way to
Jesus, surrenders its rights and discards its own glory--that the Lord
Jesus might have all and be all. In other words it is dying to self and
self-attitudes.
And as we look honestly at our Christian lives, we can see how much
of this self there is in each of us. It is so often self who tries to live the
Christian life (the mere fact that we use the word "try" indicates that it
is self who has the responsibility). It is self, too, who is often doing
Christian work. It is always self who gets irritable and envious and
resentful and critical and worried. It is self who is hard and unyielding
in its attitudes to others. It is self who is shy and self-conscious and
reserved. No wonder we need breaking. As long as self is in control,
God can do little with us, for all the fruits of the Spirit (they are
enumerated in Galatians 5), with which God longs to fill us, are the
complete antithesis of the hard, unbroken spirit within us and
presupposes that it has been crucified.
Being broken is both God's work and ours. He brings His pressure to

bear, but we have to make the choice. If we are really open to
conviction as we seek fellowship with God (and willingness for the
light is the prime condition of fellowship with God), God will show us
the expressions of this proud, hard self that cause Him pain. Then it is,
we can stiffen our necks and refuse to repent or we can bow the head
and say, "Yes, Lord." Brokenness in daily experience is simply the
response of humility to the conviction of God. And inasmuch as this
conviction is continuous, we shall need to be broken continually. And
this can be very costly, when we see all the yielding of rights and
selfish interests that this will involve, and the confessions and
restitutions that may be sometimes necessary.
For this reason, we are not likely to be broken except at the Cross of
Jesus. The willingness of Jesus to be broken for us is the all-compelling
motive in our being broken too. We see Him, Who is in the form of
God, counting not equality with God a prize to be grasped at and hung
on to, but letting it go for us and taking upon Him the form of a
Servant--God's Servant, man's Servant. We see Him willing to have no
rights of His own, no home of His own, no possessions of His own,
willing to let men revile Him and not revile again, willing to let men
tread on Him and not retaliate or defend Himself. Above all, we see
Him broken as He meekly goes to Calvary to become men's scapegoat
by bearing their sins in His own body on the Tree. In a pathetic passage
in a prophetic Psalm, He says, "I am a worm and no
man."[footnote2:Psalm 22: 6.] Those who have been in tropical lands
tell us that there is a big difference between a snake and a worm, when
you attempt to strike at them. The snake rears itself up and hisses and
tries to strike back--a true picture of self. But a worm offers no
resistance, it allows you to do what you like with it, kick it or squash it
under your heel--a picture of true brokenness. And Jesus was willing to
become just that for us--a worm and no man. And He did so, because
that is what He saw us to be, worms having forfeited all rights by our
sin, except to deserve hell. And He now calls us to take our rightful
place as