Thursday, December 26th, 2024
I am still slowly making my way through the gospels and God recently highlighted another good verse. It’s Luke 20:18:
18 Whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.
These are the words of Jesus and He is the stone that is being referenced in this verse. This is one of those verses that I find myself reading over and over to make sure I am not missing anything. On the first pass it doesn’t seem like there is much difference between the words “broken” and “grind him to powder”. But let’s see if we can differentiate them.
The word broken in Greek literally means just that. But in scripture there are many verses that speak specifically about the benefits of us being broken. Psalm 51:17 says that God does not despise a broken and contrite heart. Psalm 34:18 says that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted. Psalm 147:3 says He heals up the brokenhearted. Psalm 51:8 says that our broken bones will rejoice in God’s healing touch. Being ground to powder in the original Greek means to be winnowed or to cleanse away the chaff from grain and it also means to crush to powder.
Being broken is coming to a place of humility and recognizing that there are a lot of hard and impure places in us that need the healing touch of Jesus. We know that we need to be submitted to the hand of the Potter so that He can mold us and make us fit for His purposes. It’s about us surrendering ourselves to Him and allow Him to break us and show us if there is any wicked way in us.
As this scripture says, if we don’t surrender to Him then we will be separated like the chaff from the wheat and crushed to powder. This does not have a redemptive aspect to it.
Final Thoughts…
All across our world and our nation, I can see God’s gavel coming down and His verdicts being rendered. We as the church are not exempt from this process. I would much rather fall at the feet of Jesus now knowing that He is going to lovingly expose, correct, and lead me in the way everlasting than to experience being crushed to powder when He falls on me. Lord, expose the places in us that are trying to stay hidden in the darkness. We want You to break anything that needs Your healing oil so that we can walk in all the freedom that You died to give us.