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The Personal Work of the Cross

If anyone wants to follow in My footsteps, he must give up all right to himself, carry his cross every day and keep close behind Me. (Luke 9:23 Phillips)

The Cross is applied according to every man's make-up. What would be the Cross to me would never be the Cross to you, and the Cross may mean something different for every one of us. But it is universal. That is the point central and universal. It touches us all perhaps in a different way, and it raises questions and issues for each one of us peculiarly. That is our challenge of the Cross, and then it is a matter of whether we, in what we are, will come and allow the Cross to deal with us. It is no use our saying, "What shall this man do?" the Lord will at once answer, "What is that to thee? Follow thou Me." There is a personal, individual, shall I say, private application of the Cross to every one of us, and our spiritual growth depends entirely upon the Cross doing its work in us, and our response to it personally.

So, you see, it is very necessary that we should recognize that this cannot be taken as a kind of a general thing. It has to become peculiar to each one of us. Oh, beloved, do believe that this is not just teaching, or doctrine. It is of very great importance. But I would beg you not to accept it merely because I am saying it and emphasizing it, nor even because I tell you that so far as some of us are concerned, it is a proved thing. I would ask you for one thing only, namely, not to close your heart to it, not to say, "That is a teaching!" but just to ask the Lord, "Is this right?" taking an attitude simply and honestly before the Lord, even should you feel it is not true, and so leaving room for the possibility that the prejudice may, after all, spring from yourself, from something in your constitution or in your upbringing. Will you go to the Lord with this and say, "Lord I do not see, it is difficult for me to believe it; but, if it is true, then, Lord, I am open to the truth, and I want You to take me definitely in hand on the ground of the truth." There is not one of us, I am sure, who wants to stand in the presence of the Lord later on, and for the Lord to say, "My child, I would have led you into something very much fuller if only you had given Me the chance." Will you take a very honest and open-hearted attitude toward the Lord in the matter?

As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Not everyone who says … , “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. § Pursue … holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. § Add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble.

By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

James 2:26;  Matt. 7:21;  Heb. 12:14;  2 Peter 1:5,6;  2 Peter 1:7,8;  2 Peter 1:9,10  Eph. 2:8,9

As the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that … He might …release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” … Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. § Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.

We know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens … So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord … We are … well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.

Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

Heb. 2:14,15;  1 Cor. 15:55,57;  2 Cor. 4:16;  2 Cor. 5:1;  2 Cor. 5:6,8;  John 14:1,2

Travail

Feed the flock of God which is among you. . . being examples to the flock" (1 Pet. 5:2, 3).

It is one thing to teach, but quite another to cultivate, nurture, and bring to maturity. "There are ten thousand tutors," but "not many fathers." Not many who are willing to know the conformity to death which brings the travail for souls, in fellowship with Him who travailed on the Cross for us.

"We must not expect to win healthy souls or lead them on into spiritual maturity without long travail. If it becomes Him for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings, who are we that we should expect easily to bring many sons to glory? My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,' that is what we must expect. And when this travail comes we must go through with it, not try to escape it." -C.A.C.

"Probably friendship is second only to prayer in its importance in soul-winning. With sincerity to offer one's friendship to another is an almost certain way to gain an opportunity to speak an effective word for the Lord. But can one introduce two people to each other if one is a friend of only one? How can we introduce someone to the Lord Jesus if we know only Him, but not the poor lost sinner?

"The life with the most favorable beginning will come to maturity the soonest. Let us aim at well-born souls. Let us seek to do more careful sowing, so as to send babes in Christ into the world handicapped as little as possible at the beginning. Moreover, let us remember that our own level oft-times determines the level of those we lead to the Saviour."

"Nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine" (1 Tim. 4:6).

Crucified With Christ

Rightly Dividing the Physical and Spiritual Realms