The Principle of Death in Our Deeper Life
The Principle of Death in Our Deeper Life
We must learn not only to give up our wrongs but even our rights. It is little that we should turn from sin; if we are to follow Christ and His consecration, we must turn from the things that are not sinful and learn the great lesson of self-renunciation even in rightful things. The everlasting ideal is He, in the form of God, who thought it not a thing to be eagerly grasped that He should be equal with God, but emptied Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (see Philippians 2:6–8). There are many things which are not wrong for you to keep and to hold as your own, but in keeping them, He would lose and you would lose much more.
We have the cross mark upon our affections and friendships. Thus Abraham gave up his Isaac and received him back with a new touch of love as God’s Isaac. We shall find that most of the lives that counted much for God had somewhere in them a great renunciation, where the dearest idol was laid upon Moriah’s altar* and from that hour there was new fruit and power.
Our prayers must often have the mark of the cross upon them. We ask and we receive the promise and assurance of the answer; and then we must often see that answer apparently buried and forgotten, and long after come forth, to our amazement and surprise, multiplied with blessings that have grown out of the very delay and seeming denial.
So the life of our body which we may claim from Him must be marked with the cross. It is only after the strength of nature fails us that the strength of God can come in. Even then the answer is sometimes not given until we have first surrendered it to Him and have been willing to give up even life itself and have learned to seek the Blesser rather than the blessing. Then God often reveals Himself to us as a Healer, as He could not do until we were wholly abandoned to His will.
Our religious experiences must have the mark of the cross upon them. We must not cling even to our peace and joy and spiritual comfort. Sometimes, the flower must fade that the fruit may be more abundant and that we may learn to walk by faith and not by sight.
Our service for God often must be buried before it can bring forth much fruit. And so God sometimes calls us to a work and makes it appear to fail in its early stages, until we cry in discouragement, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nought.” Then it comes forth phoenixlike* from the flames and blossoms and buds until it fills the face of the world with fruit. So God writes the mark of the cross on everything, until, by and by, the very grave may be the passport to a better resurrection and death will be swallowed up in victory. In fact, we believe that the universe itself has yet to pass through its dissolution and come forth in the glory of a final resurrection so that the marks of the Lord Jesus may, at last, be written upon the very earth and heaven, and so that the universe to its furthest bound may reecho the great redemption song: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.”
Beloved, have you the marks of the Lord Jesus? These sacrifices to which He sometimes calls us are just great investments that He is asking us to make and that He will refund to us with accumulated interest in the age to come.
Good Richard Cecil once asked his little daughter, as she sat upon his knee with a cluster of pretty glass beads around her neck, if she truly loved him, and if she loved him enough to take those beads and fling them into the fire. She looked in his face with wonder and grief; she could hardly believe that he meant such sacrifice. But his steady gaze convinced her that he was in earnest; and with trembling, reluctant steps she tottered to the grate, and clinging to them with reluctant fingers, at last dropped them into the fire, and then flinging herself into his arms, she sobbed herself to stillness in the bewilderment and perplexity of her renunciation. He let her learn her lesson fully, but a few days later, on her birthday, she found upon her dressing case a little package, and on opening it she found inside a cluster of real pearls strung upon a necklace and bearing her name with her father’s love. She had scarcely time to grasp the beautiful present as she flew to his presence and throwing herself in his arms, she said, “Oh, Papa, I am so sorry that I did not understand.”
Some day, beloved, in His arms, you will understand. He does not always explain it now. He lets the cross have all its sharpness. He lets the weary years go by; but oh, some day we will understand and be so glad that we were permitted to bear with Him and for Him the “brand marks of the Lord Jesus.”
From The Cross of Christ
© 1994 by Zur Ltd.
* Moriah’s altar: a reference to the hill Abraham climbed to offer up his son Isaac to God (see Genesis 22:2).
* Phoenix: a legendary bird that lived 500 years, burned itself to ashes on a pyre and then emerged fresh and young again.