God's Sovereign Work of Brokenness: How the Flesh is Compelled to Drink
Orientation
The flesh inherently resists the Spirit, making spiritual progress through self-effort impossible and leading only to failure.
- The flesh is like Ishmael—a wild, untrainable bondservant perpetually at war with the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-17).
- Attempting to build up the old creation leads not to success but to a 'checkmate' of failure.
- This daily experience of failure is not a sign of God's absence but a necessary part of His work.
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. (Galatians 5:17)
— Galatians 5:17
Clarification
The brokenness we experience is not divine punishment but God's tool to eliminate self-righteousness and reveal our true nature.
- Life's painful consequences often mirror our own character flaws back to us, as seen in Jacob's story.
- This 'reaping what we sow' is a means of self-discovery and humility, not retributive justice.
- God contrasts this brokenness with the boasting of zealous, self-righteous believers to show a different way.
And they took Joseph's coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood; And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found: know now whether it be thy son's coat or no. And he knew it, and said, It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces. (Genesis 37:31-33)
— Genesis 37:31-33
Structure
God sovereignly uses trials to force our resistant flesh to receive the living water of grace, which it would otherwise reject.
- The new creation's life is offered as 'living water,' but the flesh actively refuses it.
- God overcomes this resistance by orchestrating painful circumstances—'holding your nose'—to compel the intake of grace.
- This is an ongoing, sovereign work exemplified in Paul's life, where severe struggle preceded the dispensation of grace to others.
In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (John 7:37-38)
— John 7:37-38
Weight-Bearing Prose
The core assertion is Pauline: the flesh (Ishmael) and the Spirit are irreconcilably opposed (Gal 5:17). Spiritual life is not an improvement of the old creation but the reception of a new one. Since the flesh wages war against the Spirit, any attempt at progress through self-effort or zeal guarantees failure. This failure is not accidental but instrumental. God uses the flesh’s own wild nature to bring the believer to a point of brokenness—a checkmate. This brokenness, seen in patterns like reaping what one has sown (as with Jacob), serves a positive divine purpose: it eliminates grounds for boasting and self-righteousness. The new creation’s life—the living water of grace—cannot be gently persuaded into the resistant flesh. Therefore, God employs sovereign compulsion. He ‘holds the nose’ through life’s trials and pains, forcing open the mouth to receive what the flesh would otherwise reject. This is how grace is dispensed. Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles flowed from God first bringing Paul himself to this place of forced dependence. The means is humbling, but the outcome is the intake of Christ, our life.
Integration
This process is God’s work, not yours. Your experience of failure or resistance is not a sign that He has abandoned you, but evidence that He is actively dismantling your reliance on the flesh. The brokenness you feel is the very tool He uses to make room for Christ. There is no pressure to advance yourself or to somehow ‘drink’ correctly on your own. He is the one who opens the mouth. He is the one who provides the living water. Your assurance rests in His faithfulness to complete this work, not in your ability to understand or cooperate with it. Christ is your sanctification. Your part is not effort, but the rest of receiving what He sovereignly gives. Even in the confusion, the pain, or the sense of being forced, you are held securely in His purpose. The end is not your maturity, but your possession of Christ.