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Although accepting Jesus' gift of salvation and eternal life brings dramatic changes to our spiritual anatomy, eternal destiny, and relationship with God, it marks only the beginning of a lifelong process the Lord utilizes to fully prepare us for His work. Reaching this state of spiritual availability requires the releasing of our inner man (or spirit), which can only happen if we allow God to break our outer man (or soul-life). However, because this process requires our complete surrender, it is imperative that we recognize the ways we can resist the outer man's breaking and the consequences of doing so.
There are two major obstacles that can prohibit the breaking process. One of them is a focus that is not Christ-centered. Many believers, despite being saved and assured salvation, live a decidedly carnal and spiritually darkened lifestyle that causes people, things, and their surroundings to be the center of their lives rather than their relationship with Jesus. Sadly, this worldly way of life causes believers to resist God's breaking process because they see it as attacks from others or the world. Conversely, believers with a Christ-centered focus not only perceive their outer man breaking to be God's work, but also humbly accept it (Nee, 1997, p. 13). The other obstacle to the breaking process is self-love. Like the previous obstacle, believers' refusal to surrender their self-love is a result of clinging to a carnal lifestyle that opposes God's work. Central to this rebellion is believers attempting to preserve the outer man, prioritizing their self-life over God's perfect design for them. Thus, the Lord prioritizes removing our self-love in the breaking process (Nee, 1997, p. 13), which allows us to humbly accept His will and be readied for Spirit-filled service. Unless we reject our carnal focus and surrender our self-love, the outer man's breaking will be severely limited and unnecessarily stalled.
Furthermore, there are multiple consequences to resisting the breaking process. The most obvious one is that we can unnecessarily extend it. While God often spends multiple years breaking the outer man in multiple ways, our resistance to this process can cause it to span decades. By prolonging this process, we can lose spiritual opportunities and rewards that will never again be obtainable (Nee, 1997, pp. 11-12). Another major consequence is continual spiritual turmoil. In Romans 7, the Apostle Paul recounts how his outer man continually led him to do things that he, in his inner man, knew were sinful. Unless we allow the Lord to break our outer man, our flesh will continually prohibit the Holy Spirit's outpouring in our lives (Nee, 1997, p. 7). One other consequence of resisting the outer man's breaking is a crippling state of spiritual unfitness. As previously mentioned, the outer man prohibits us from growing spiritually because it causes us to continually fall into sin. This not only keeps us from living according to God's righteous standards through His Spirit, but also severely limits our availability for God's work, which can only come through our inner man (Nee, 1997, p. 7). Thus, by resisting the breaking process, we not only prolong it, but also suffer from lost opportunities, constant turmoil, and spiritual unfitness.
While the breaking of our outer man is an essential part of our spiritual growth, many Christians unfortunately choose to prohibit it. Because this resistance causes us to rebel against God, doing so causes us to suffer severe spiritual consequences that, while leaving our salvation unaffected, cause great turmoil between our warring natures and severely limit our relationship with and usefulness to God. Conversely, it is by surrendering to this painful, yet necessary process that our inner man can be fully released, which allows the Lord to use us for great and mighty works that will deeply bless others and bring glory to His name.
Nee, W. (1997). The breaking of the outer man and the release of the spirit. Living Stream Ministry.
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