◄ Self-abandonment ►

Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin" (Rom. 6:11a).

All of the cults, from TM to ST to SDA, are simply self-improvement aberrations. The Cross alone provides death to self and life in the Lord Jesus Christ. "God forbid that I should glory, except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Gal. 6:14).

"What becomes us now is to have the Lord Jesus before us, and not the correction of the old man. The snare of trying to improve oneself is very common, and it is important to see, that however well-meaning it may be, it is really a denial that our old man has been crucified, and a revival of that which has been judged in the death of the Cross.

"It is plain that if you are clear of the domination of the old man you can have no man before you but the Lord Jesus, and the more sensible you are of how ready the flesh is to intrude."

"God never means me to be able, with the Pharisee, to thank Him for the goodness that I find in myself. If I will be at it, He leaves me to find in this irreparable flesh, which cannot be mended, what I may break my heart over, but never alter.

"It is a quicksand which spoils all my building - a morass impracticable to cultivation; and God uses this, in His sovereignty over evil, to wean me from self-confidence and self-complacency, and to cast me upon Himself."

"Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be. . . alive unto God through Jesus Christ, our Lord" (Rom. 6:11b).