He Has You

One of my favorite teachers is Oswald Chambers. He died at the age of 43 in 1917, but we are most blessed that his wife Biddy recorded much of his talks in shorthand. Many years after Oswald went to heaven, Biddy put together the classic devotion called, “My Utmost for His Highest” from her husband’s anointed teachings. This timeless devotional is shockingly powerful and must be read prayerfully many times to begin to understand the spiritual truths held between its covers.

In the September 30 devotion, Oswald spoke on how God prepares us to serve by making us “broken bread and poured out wine.” He went on to say, “Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us.” It is God who chooses the people and circumstances to crush us, and it is up to us to let Him. This crushing is the classroom in which God will prepare us to serve Him.

When God has you on your knees, it is there that He can change you. “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience” (James 1:2-3).

You must first be broken that He would form you into something new.

How long will the Lord have to keep you in the belly of a fish until you will yield yourself to Him? “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (Jonah 1:17).

A knowledge above often comes from a sorrow within.

In the midst of God shaping us, we usually pray that our difficulties would be removed instead of that they would change us. What we think is destroying us, is actually building us into the very thing that God can use. Lose the idea that the Father will make your life easy. Be sure that Father God knows what He is doing. Let Him break you into bread. Let Him crush you into wine.

Sometimes I wonder how God can make something good come from the bad in which He puts me through. During such times, His silence is worse than His rebuke. When God places us in the winepress, the process is never easy. You can’t have the bread until it is first broken. You can’t have the wine without first crushing the grape.

If you want to reach the broken, be the broken. “The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite [crushed] spirit” (Psalm 34:18).

God must test your faith to reveal your faith.

You may look knocked down to men yet be exactly where God can use you. “We are persecuted by others, but God has not forsaken us. We may be knocked down, but not out” (2 Corinthians 4:9 TPT).

You must empty your own desires that you would be filled with His.

When you are weak before God, He will be your strength before men. “He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength” (Isaiah 40:29).

Oswald went on to say, “Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.” The closer you get to God, the more you realize how He uses your suffering for His purposes. The devilish idea that God will only make us rich and comfortable is born out of the flesh of man.

We must get the fleshly thought cast out of our mind that we could serve God better in our comfort than our suffering. Let God use the classroom of your circumstances to teach you how to serve His children. The more you want to serve Him, the harder His lesson is going to be.

Until we are broken and yielded unto God, we are just another zealous soul working counter to the Kingdom of God. The Apostle Paul “…persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. …being more exceedingly zealous…” (Galatians 1:13-14). Then Jesus broke him.

It is when we are broken that the Lord can form us into something new.

Consider that He has broken your heart, that He then might flow through it onto others. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart — These, O God, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).

Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to get your footing.

It is a powerful message you preach, when you show grace to those who mistreat you. “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one” (Colossians 4:6).

Are you willing to be broken bread and poured out wine for the benefit of the kingdom? I don’t know what you’re going through, but God does. My prayer is that you would trust our Father in how He is preparing you for kingdom work.

In the May 15 devotion from Oswald, he said these words: “We are here to submit to His will so that He may work through us what He wants. Once we realize this, He will make us broken bread and poured-out wine with which to feed and nourish others”.

Child of God, let the Father do with you as He will, and then your life will be a blessing to His other children.

Blessings to you,

Paul Balius

All Scripture is quoted from the New King James Version unless otherwise noted. Please use the version you prefer to review the verses shown here. The best version is the one you read. An even better version is the one you live.