The purpose of God is that our spirit as well as our will may yield to Him, and thus the whole nature be brought under His reign and be responsive to Him. The reason that we see so many Christians living a life of struggle and failure is because they have refused to be exercised by, and yielded to, the chastening hand of God. They are wholly unbroken in spirit. Paul is an example of brokenness of spirit. In the ninth chapter of Acts we have his conversion, where with one masterly stroke of Almighty God, the riotous, rebellious, persecuting Saul is changed to the ever-obedient, broken-spirited Paul. What happened to Paul in that hour must happen sometime to every living man or woman who would know a life of victory over the flesh.

Acts 9:5-6 tell us,“And he said, Who art Thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” Saul found what was the matter with him; he had been kicking against God, and as soon as he saw it, he surrendered, and God took the kick out of him. He said, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” not as the terrified keeper of the prison, who yielded because of fear, and said, “What must I do?” (Act 16:30). The self-will is always saying: “What must I do?” But a broken spirit ever seeks, “What wilt Thou have me to do?” Here is where we are prone to fail. There are times when we are perfectly sure God is speaking, and we have no intention to disobey. Yet like the Israelites who say, "We will do," but they do it with a self-willed spirit rather than a surrendered spirit. This results in ultimate failure as well as it hinders God's blessing and God's work in and through us.

The Lord needs to show us how one could be even willing to go to the stake, and yet to do so with a wholly unbroken spirit, utterly at variance with Him who said, “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.” Look at Peter who said that he said confidently that he was willing to follow the Lord Jesus unto death and ended up with an ignominious defeat of denying the Lord 3 times. What the Lord is seeking after are those who whether it is in success or bitterest persecution, their conviction of spirit remains unchanged: “I delight to do Thy will” -- without murmuring, resistance, or questioning, but absolute brokenness of spirit (Psa 40:7-8). This was the Lord Jesus' living model when He was on the earth. Had it been otherwise, His mission on earth would have been a failure. Can you imagine the Lord Jesus all His life obeying His Father, but His spirit murmuring, and crying out at every step to be eased or released from the trial, the burden lifted or the circumstances changed? It is not merely His utter surrender of will that excites our admiration, but it is the consciousness that His whole being went with the will in glad obedience, and thus we learn the meaning of the Lamb slain. And we collectively as His Bride are to be united to this Lamb. How can we unless we too have been slain?

“God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (1Cor 1:27). If it were not so, man would use God instead of God using man. Before one is brought to this state of brokeness, God does graciously put His Spirit upon man at times, and there is real Pentecostal power, but man cannot be trusted with power, so that this intermittent life is the best God can do for an unbroken spirit. But when once the will is surrendered and the new mingled spirit dominates, it is upon this spirit that God says, “I will put My Spirit,” (Eze 36) and a life of power and victory is assured. In Ezekiel 36:37 He tells us how this heart of stone, this hard unbroken spirit will be taken away.

It is tragic to see the character and work of many an honest Christian bears the label "unbrokeness," and that is the reason that He permits many trials that are beyond our understanding, beyond our faith, even beyond endurance, not only that the will may surrender, but that we may be pressed to exchange our self and our flesh, which is forever warring with the Spirit (Gal 5:17). Yet we should be encouraged under such trials, for if God allows us to go our way exercising our ministry unchecked and unbroken, He must have already given up on us. Thank the Lord for His tough love.