The Brokeness of Ministry

The Brokeness of Ministry

What is the relationship between knowing life and our service to God? "Knowing" cannot fully represent our way. Whether or not a person’s ministry is released is dependent not only upon his knowing life but also upon his outward man being broken. The content of ministry is inner life.
Man has his inner as well as outer man. When the outward man is broken, his ministry can be discharged. In such a person, the deep calls unto the deep (Ps. 42.7). But in the person whose outer man remains unbroken, it will probably be that the shallow calls unto the shallow!

What we need today is the breaking of the outer man. Without such breaking, the inner man cannot be liberated. All which belongs to the outward needs to be broken; otherwise, the inward cannot be released. The earthen vessel must be broken before the inner treasure can show forth its power (2 Cor. 4.7). So long as the pure nard remains in the alabaster cruse, the odor of the ointment will not fill the house. But if the cruse be broken, the fragrance in profusion comes forth (John 12.3).

God deals with us daily through our circumstances. He works within us on the one hand and arranges our circumstances on the other. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as chance in the life of a Christian since he has only the discipline of the Holy Spirit. For the Christian, all circumstances are the discipline of the Spirit. And the purpose of such discipline is to break the various elements of our outward man. As a man’s reasoning is broken, his inner man flows out. As his emotion is also broken, his inner man issues forth.

Do not think that all is right so long as the words spoken are correct and properly delivered. No, there has to be another consideration here, and that is, whether these words are spoken outwardly or inwardly. An unbroken man may use the same vocabulary, utter the same word, even convey the same meaning as would the broken man but you cannot touch anything in what he has said. In order to be of service to God our outer man must be broken, for only then can our inner man be released. As our inner man comes forth, it touches the inner man of others.

A person who is clever in thinking and planning will be of little usefulness in spiritual things. You may say something laughingly or say it tearfully; yet the issue is not in how you say it but in how much of your inner man is released in the saying of it. To the extent a person is broken to that extent will be the measure of his ministry. How we need to have dealings before God in all these areas of our life. How we love to meet a person whose outward man has been wounded. For in meeting him we touch his inward man. The purpose of God’s discipline is for the breaking of the outward man. A person may tell a woeful story on the platform without his being sorrowful himself. Or he may tell a joke without his being joyful at all. Such a person can act in theater but not preach God’s word. Or the person whom you speak to can be so hard outwardly that he gives no response to whatever you may say. He can be likened to the people at the time of John the Baptist: "We piped unto you, and ye did not dance; we wailed, and ye did not mourn" (Matt. 11.17).

The basis of ministry is one’s knowledge of God; but whether a person’s ministry is effective or not depends on the breaking of his outer shell. If we wish to learn to be ministers of God’s word, let us have this very understanding before God. More and more we shall find that without the wounding of the outer man, there can be no real ministry. I would again liken it to a rubber tree that will not yield its inner sap without a knife wound having been inflicted upon it. People without wounds cannot have ministry. Indeed there is no shortcut to ministry.