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The
above letter has been a blessing to many people. This young woman,
seriously ill with the sentence of death in herself, so completely embraced
her handicap and stretched her hands upon it, and so lost her own love
of life, that she became oblivious of any bearing of the cross. The
Cross became to her in measure what it was to Samuel Rutherford: "Christ's
Cross is the sweetest burden that ever I bare; it is such a burden as wings
are to a bird, or sails to a ship, to carry me forward to
my harbour." Lest some of our readers be inclined to think that this young
woman had attained a degree of spirituality that would insure her
success evermore, we sound this warning: The last time we saw her, apparently
well, she was living an utterly worldly life. She had failed to keep
the Cross between her and that "former manner of life." The Cross em-braced
once-for-all in full surrender must be followed by the "cross daily." We
must press forward to know the fellowship of his sufferings," having as
our goal nothing short of "conformity to His death." Be this my lifelong
attitude!
The reader will pardon the
following rather amusing exchanges. They are much to the point in
connection with this chapter: A missionary leader was about to send into
service a young preacher who had but recently taken the way of shame.
A friend of the writer wrote to this leader as follows: "Do you not know,
have you not considered, that sending Mr. -- out in work before rigor mortis
is fully established is snatching a corpse on its way to the grave?' Ashes
to ashes, dust to dust. No grave, no resurrection: only resuscitation.
A crape with no bier to follow.'
Later this young preacher,
after experiencing some success in his ministry, wrote to the missionary
leader saying, "I am sure rigor mortis is fully established." My friend
wrote another letter as follows:
"Give Mr. -- my kindest regards
and 'tell him that the corpse is the only one at a funeral that does not
know that it (the aforesaid corpse) is a stiff. This rule is invariable.
Any archaeologist will tell you that even a mummy 5,000 years old does
not know it is dead. If a corpse says it is dead, it isn't.
You do not need to feel its pulse; it is talking."
It is only through our life-union
with the Lord Jesus Christ at the Cross, and with the eye fixed upon our
death with Him, that we can safely say we are "dead indeed unto sin." The
basis is never that of experience but of relationship with Him
in His death. The man who is most vitally and experimentally
dead unto sin is not the man who is consciously dead (a contradiction
in experience as well as in nature), but rather the man who is "alive unto
God" i.e., Christ-conscious. "To me to live is Christ," said
the apostle. It was Andrew Murray who once said concerning the now
fallen angels: "It was when they began to look upon themselves with self-complacency
that they were led to disobedience." Beloved, let us go on and press on.
The only attainment that is worth a fig is a growing attitude of "conformity
to His death."
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