Broken upon the Stone...

"And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces;

but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust."

- Matthew 21:44

This past week, I saw a miracle. A miracle that happens all over the world hundreds of thousands of times a week. I saw someone come to know Jesus as God, King, Lord, and Savior. His name is Brett and he is a senior in high school who I had met through substitute teaching. In our first meeting around a month ago, I had played some basketball with him and gave him a ride home. On our ride home, we talked about how Jesus had said that "if a man looks upon a woman to lust after her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart." I compared the lust of the flesh to a sumo wrestler who, after he had been fed a little bit, is going to get stronger and want more. Thus, when I saw him around in the weeks after our first chat, I would ask him, "You been feedin' the Sumo?" To which he would smile shyly and reply, "Nah man." Until this past week.

He came out to rebound some shots I was taking and after, I asked what I always did. This time he said "As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, I have been feedin him. And all those other times when I told you I wasn't, I really was." The following conversation was amazing. He opened up to me about what he was really struggling with; anger, lust, desire for revenge, getting mad at his parents. The Lord began speaking through me as I have only rarely experienced. I told Brett that he hadn't even seen anger until he saw God on Judgment Day apart from Jesus' blood. He has to punish everyone with wrath who has sinned. Perfect, eternal justice demanded it and hell was the place where this was carried out (thus the second part to the verse above). I also explained in depth the love of God in the cross, and that, through it, and Christ's resurrection, God could come through with all authority and crush the flesh and the enemy that was reeking havoc on his conscience. That He would replace all those sinful feelings with joy, peace, patience, and love. We also talked about how, if he didn't act upon what I was telling him, the enemy had his ways of putting the Truth I was explaining to the back of his mind, and it would eventually become cold and distant.

He said he felt like he didn't have a purpose because he wasn't excelling at anything in life. I told him about how God has a single purpose for every human. That, just as Adam and Even enjoyed living with God in perfect relationship with Him in the garden, God wanted all of us to come into a relationship with Him, and that this could only happen when he trusted in Jesus' finished work on the cross to bring him there.

He told me in the beginning of our conversation that it had been a long time since he had pryaed, but when I took him over to the side he said, "We just need to pray." He started confessing all types of things to God. Idolatry, dishonoring of his parents, honoring man, not praising God. He told God how empty He was, how badly he needed God's help. I told him to think about the cross and to tell God what He thought of it. He received its truth and its power. He then leaned up against the wall and slid down it, saying that he felt so weak...he began to lightly weep and sigh. I let him sit there and prayed with him for awhile. I told him to ask God to fill him up and he said, "God please fill me with your love." So sincere. Sincerely pure.

At this point, the coach who is the sponsor for FCA on campus walked by and I told him about Brett's decision. He praised God and took hold of Brett and instructed him to get involved with a church. Brett could hardly look up at him. Where was the joy? Why didn't he get excited about joining a church? After the coach walked away, he told me he couldn't hardly look me in the face. I asked him what he was thinking. "I don't even know." What are you feeling? "I feel good, but weak." Right then the reality of his brokeness hit me. OF COURSE! The verse above explains how this must happen. How else should he feel when He's just been in the presence of the Almighty God for the first time having spiritual surgery done on him?

I gave him a ride home and a bible he could understand (he had his great grandfather's King James' Version) and a small beginner's dischipleship booklet by Ray Comfort that I had had forever in my trunk. He told me that he would start taking Sundays off to come to church with me and I told him he should start reading Ephesians. I gave him a hug and we parted ways. Upon further reflection afterwards, in the Parable of the Sower, Jesus said, "The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away."

Praise God Brett wasn't "immediately joyful". Brokeness over offending and hurting God by our sin MUST preceed the joy that comes with the Holy Spirit. Only when an incomplete gospel message is preached or a decision is forced will there be an immediate joy in the "convert". This conversion, as well as the joy, is superficial and is a guise of the enemy. If you are reading this, and haven't ever been broken before the cross of Jesus, but call yourself a Christian, please do as the apostle Paul says and, "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you--unless indeed you fail the test? " There is nothing wrong with making sure you are truly saved from hell. In fact, nothing is more important! Let us lay down our pride and follow Brett's example in allowing the cross of Jesus to break us, the blood of Jesus to heal us, and the resurrection of Jesus to give us life.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

Psalm 51:17