Chapter 13: The Path of Progress: Bearing the Cross
In our previous chapter we have touched
several times upon the matter of service for the Lord. As we come now to look
at the provision that God has made to meet the problem created by the soul-life
of man, it will be helpful if we approach that problem by considering first the
principles which govern our work for Him and from which no one who tries to
serve Him may deviate. The basis of our salvation, as we well know, is the
fact of our Lord's death and resurrection; but the conditions of our service
are no less definite. Just as the fact of the death and resurrection of the
Lord is the ground of our acceptance with God, so the principle of death
and resurrection is the basis of our life and service for Him.
The Basis Of All True Ministry
No one can be a true servant of God without
knowing the principle of death and the principle of resurrection. Even the
Lord Jesus Himself served on that basis. You will find in Matthew 3 that,
before His public ministry ever began, our Lord was baptized. He was baptized
not because He had any sin, or anything which needed cleansing. No, we know
the meaning of baptism: it is a figure of death and resurrection. The
ministry of the Lord did not begin until He was on that ground. After He had
been baptized and had voluntarily taken the ground of death and resurrection,
the Holy Spirit came upon Him, and then He ministered.
What does this teach us? Our Lord was a sinless
Man. None but He has trodden this earth and known no sin. Yet as Man He had a
separate personality from His Father. Now we must tread very carefully when we
touch our Lord; but remember His words: "I seek not mine own will, but the will
of him that sent me". What does this mean? It certainly does not mean that
the Lord had no will of His own. He had a will, as His own words show. As Son
of man He had a will, but He did not do it; He came to do the will of the
Father. So this is the point. That thing in Him which is in distinction from
the Father is the human soul, which He assumed when He was "found in fashion as
a man". Being a perfect Man our Lord had a soul, and of course a body, just as
you and I have a soul and a body, and it was possible for Him to act from
the soul -- that is, from Himself.
You remember that immediately after the Lord's
baptism, and before His public ministry began, Satan came and tempted Him. He
tempted Him to satisfy His essential needs by turning stones to bread; to
secure immediate respect for His ministry by appearing miraculously in the
temple court; to assume without delay the world dominion destined for Him; and
you are inclined to wonder why he tempted Him to do such strange things. He
might rather, you feel, have tempted Him to sin in a more thoroughgoing way.
But he did not; he knew better. He only said: "If thou art the Son of
God, command that these stones become bread". What did it mean? The
implication was this: `If You are the Son of God You must do something to prove
it. Here is a challenge. Some will certainly raise a question as to whether
Your claim is real or not. Why do You not settle the matter finally now by
coming out and proving it?'
The whole subtle object of Satan was to get the
Lord to act for Himself -- that is, from the soul -- and, by the stand He took,
the Lord Jesus absolutely repudiated such action. In Adam, man had acted from
himself apart from God; that was the whole tragedy of the garden. Now in a
similar situation the Son of man takes another ground. Later He defines it as
His basic life-principle -- and I like the word in the Greek: "The Son can do
nothing out from himself" (John 5:19). That total denial of the
soul-life was to govern all His ministry.
So we can safely say that all the work which the
Lord Jesus did on earth, prior to His actual death on the cross, was done with
the principle of death on the cross, and resurrection as basis, even though as
an actual event Calvary still lay in the future. Everything He did was on that
ground. But if this is so -- if the Son of man has to go through death and
resurrection (in figure and in principle) in order to work, can we do
otherwise? Surely no servant of the Lord can serve Him without himself knowing
the working of that principle in his life. It is of course out of the
question. The Lord made this very clear to His disciples when He left them.
He had died and He was risen, and He told them to wait in Jerusalem for the
Spirit to come upon them. Now what is this power of the Holy Spirit, this
"power from on high" of which He spoke? It is nothing less than the virtue of
His death, resurrection and ascension. To use another figure, the Holy Spirit
is the Vessel in whom all the values of the death, resurrection and exaltation
of the Lord are deposited, that they may be brought to us. He is the one who
`contains' those values and mediates them to men. That is the reason why the
Spirit could not be given before the Lord had been glorified. Then only could
He rest upon men and women that they might witness; and without the values of
the death and resurrection of Christ no such witness is possible.
If we turn to the Old Testament we find the same
thing is there. I would refer you to a familiar passage in the seventeenth
chapter of Numbers. The matter of Aaron's ministry has been contested. There
is a question among the people as to whether Aaron is truly the chosen of God.
They have entertained a suspicion, and have said in effect: `Whether that man
is ordained of God or not, we do not know!' and so God sets out to prove who is
His servant and who is not. How does He do so? Twelve dead rods are put
before the Lord in the sanctuary over against the testimony, and they are there
for a night. Then, in the morning, the Lord indicates His chosen minister by
the rod which buds, blossoms and bears fruit.
We all know the meaning of that. The budding rod
speaks of resurrection. It is death and resurrection that marks God-recognized
ministry. Without that you have nothing. The budding of Aaron's rod proved
him to be on a true basis, and God will only recognize as His ministers those
who have come through death to resurrection ground.
We have seen that the death of the Lord works in
different ways and has different aspects. We know how His death has worked in
regard to the forgiveness of our sins. We all know that our forgiveness is
based upon the shed Blood, and that without the shedding of Blood there is no
remission. Then we have come further and in Romans 6 have seen how death works
to meet the power of sin. We have learned that our old man has been crucified
in order that henceforth we should not serve sin, and we have praised the Lord
that here too His death has worked for our deliverance. Further on still the
question of human self-will arises, and the need for consecration is apparent;
and we find death working that way to bring about in us a willingness to let go
our own wills and obey the Lord. That indeed constitutes a starting point for
our ministry, but still it does not touch the core of the question. There may
still be the lack of knowledge of what is meant by the soul.
Then another phase is presented to us in Romans 7
where the question of holiness of life is in view -- a living, personal
holiness. There you find a true man of God trying to please God in
righteousness, and he comes under the law and the law finds him out. He is
trying to please God by using his own carnal power, and the Cross has to bring
him to the place where he says, `I cannot do it. I cannot satisfy God with
my powers; I can only trust the Holy Spirit to do that in me.' I
believe some of us have passed through deep waters to learn this, and to
discover the value of the death of the Lord working in this way.
Now mark you, there is still a great difference
between "the flesh", as spoken of in Romans 7 in relation to holiness of life,
and the working of the natural energies of the soul-life in the service of the
Lord. With all the above being known -- and known in experience -- there still
remains this one sphere more which the death of the Lord must enter before we
are actually of use to Him in service. Even with all these experiences we are
still unsafe for Him to use until this further thing is effected in us. How
many of God's servants are used by Him, as we say in China, to build twelve
feet of wall, only, when they have done so, to undo it all by themselves
pulling down fifteen feet! We are used in a sense, but at the same time we
destroy our own work, and sometimes that of others also, because of there being
somewhere something undealt with by the Cross.
Now we have to see how the Lord has set out to
deal with the soul, and then more particularly how this touches the question of
our service for Him.
The Subjective Working Of The Cross
We must keep before us now four passages from
the Gospels They are: Matthew 10:34-39; Mark 8:32-25; Luke 17:32-34; and John
12:24-26. These four passages have something in common. In each you have the
Lord Himself speaking to us concerning the soul-activity of man, and in each a
different aspect or manifestation of the soul-life is touched upon. In these
verses He makes it very plain that the soul of man can be dealt with in one way
and in one way only, and that is by our bearing the cross daily and following
Him.
As we have just seen, the soul-life or natural
life that is here in view is something further than what we have in those
passages which are concerned with the old man or the flesh. We have sought to
make quite clear that, in respect of our old man, God emphasizes the thing He
has done once for all in crucifying us with Christ on the Cross. We
have seen that three times in the Epistle to the Galations the `crucifying'
aspect of the Cross is referred to as a thing accomplished; and in Romans 6:6
we have the clear statement that "our old man was crucified", which, if the
tense of the word means anything, we might well paraphrase: `Our old man has
been finally and for ever crucified'. It is something done, to be apprehended
by Divine revelation and then appropriated by faith.
But there is a further aspect of the Cross,
namely that implied in the expression `bearing his cross daily', which is
before us now. The Cross has borne me; now I must bear it; and this bearing of
the Cross is an inward thing. It is this that we mean when we speak of `the
subjective working of the Cross'. Moreover it is a daily process; it is a step
by step following after Him. It is this which is now brought before us in
relation to the soul, and let us note that the emphasis here is not quite the
same as with the old man. We do not have here the `crucifixion' of the soul
itself, in the sense that our natural gifts and faculties, our personality and
our individuality, are to be put away altogether. Were it so it could hardly
be said of us, as it is in Hebrews 10:39, that we are to "have faith unto the
saving of the soul". (Compare 1 Peter 1:9; Luke 21:19.) No, we do not lose
our souls in this sense, for to do so would be to lose our individual existence
completely. The soul is still there with its natural endowments, but the Cross
is brought to bear upon it to bring those natural endowments into death -- to
put the mark of His death upon them -- and thereafter, as God may please, to
give them back to us in resurrection.
It is in this sense that Paul, writing to the
Philippians, expresses the desire "that I may know him, and the power of his
resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his
death" (Phil. 3:10). The mark of death is upon the soul all the time to bring
it to the place where it is always subordinate to the Spirit and never
independently asserts itself. Only the Cross, working in such a way, could
make a man of the calibre of Paul, and with the natural resources hinted at in
Philippians 3, so distrust his own natural strength that he could write to the
Corinthians: "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ,
and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much
trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of
wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God" (1 Cor.
2:2,3).
The soul is the seat of the affections, and what
a great part of our decisions and actions is influenced by these! There is
nothing deliberately sinful about them, mind you, but it is simply that there
is something in us which can go out in natural affection to another person and
which as a result can influence wrongly our whole course of action. So in the
first of the four passages before us the Lord has to say: "He that loveth
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or
daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that doth not take his cross
and follow after me, is not worthy of me" (Matt. 10:37,38). You note that to
follow the Lord in the way of the Cross is set before us as His normal, His
only way for us. What immediately follows? "He that findeth his soul shall
lose it; and he that loseth his soul for my sake shall find it" (Matt. 10:39,
mg.).
The secret danger lies in that subtle working of
the affections to turn us away from the pathway of God; and the key to the
matter is the soul. The Cross has to deal with that. I have to "lose" my soul
in the sense in which the Lord meant those words, and which we are seeking here
to explain.
Some of us know well what it means to lose our
soul. We can no longer fulfill its desire; we cannot give in to it; we cannot
gratify it: that is the `loss' of the soul. We are going through a painful
process to discourage what the soul is asking for. And many a time we have to
confess that it is not any definite sin that is keeping us from following the
Lord to the end. We are held up because of some secret love somewhere, some
perfectly natural affection diverting our course. Yes, affection plays a great
part in our lives, and the Cross has to come in there and do its work.
Then we pass to the reference in Mark chapter 8.
I think that is a most important passage. Our Lord had just taught His
disciples at Caesarea Philippi that He was going to suffer death at the hands
of the elders of the Jews, and then Peter, with all his love for his Master,
came up and rebuked Him and said to Him: `Lord, do not do it; pity Thyself:
this shall never come to Thee!' Out of his love for the Lord he appealed to
Him to spare Himself; and the Lord rebuked Peter, as He would rebuke Satan, for
caring for the things of men and not the things of God. And then to all
present the word was spoken once more: "If any man would come after me, let him
deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save
his soul shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his soul for my sake and the
gospel's shall save it" (Mark 8:34,35, mg.).
The whole question at issue is again that of the
soul, and here it is particularly of the soul's desire for self-preservation.
There is that subtle working of the soul which says, `If I could be allowed to
live I would do anything, be willing for anything; but I must be kept alive!'
There you have the soul almost crying out for help. `Going to the Cross, being
crucified -- oh that is really too much! Have mercy on yourself; pity
yourself! Do you mean to say you are going against yourself and going
with God?' Some of us know well that in order to go on with God we have
many a time to go against the voice of the soul- our own or other people's --
and to let the Cross come in to silence that appeal for self-preservation.
Am I afraid of the will of God? The dear saint
whom I have already mentioned as having had such an influence upon the course
of my life, many times asked me the question: `Do you like the will of God?'
It is a tremendous question. She did not ask, `Do you do the will of
God?' she always asked, `Do you like the will of God?' That question
cuts deeper than anything else. I remember once she was having a controversy
with the Lord over a certain matter. She knew what the Lord wanted, and in her
heart she wanted it too. But is was difficult, and I heard her pray like this:
`Lord, I confess I don't like it, but please do not give in to me. Just wait,
Lord -- and I will give in to Thee.' She did not want the Lord to yield
to her and to reduce His demands upon her. She wanted nothing but to please
Him.
Many a time we have to come to the place where we
are willing to let go things we think to be good and precious -- yes, and even,
it may be, the very things of God themselves -- that His will may be done.
Peter's concern was for his Lord and was dictated by his natural love for Him.
We might feel that Peter had a marvelous love for his Lord, sufficient even for
him to dare to rebuke Him. Only a strong love could bring one to attempt that!
Yes, but when there is purity of spirit without that mixture of soul, you will
not be led into Peter's mistake. You will recognize the will of God and you
will find that that is what your heart delights in alone. You will no
longer even shed a tear in sympathy with the flesh. Yes, the Cross cuts
deeply, and we see here once more how utterly it has to deal with the soul.
Once again the Lord Jesus deals with the matter
of the soul in Luke chapter 17, and now it is in relation to His return.
Speaking of "the day that the Son of man is revealed", He draws a parallel
between that day and "the day that Lot went out from Sodom" (verses 29, 30). A
little later He speaks of the `rapture' in the twice repeated words: "One
shall be taken, and the other shall be left" (verses 34,35). But between His
reference to the calling of Lot out of Sodom and this allusion to the rapture,
the Lord says these remarkable words: "In that day, he which shall be on the
housetop, and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them away:
and let him that is in the field likewise not return back. Remember Lot's
wife" (verses 31, 32). Remember Lot's wife! Why? because "whosoever
shall seek to gain his soul shall lose it: but whosoever shall lose his soul
shall save it alive" (verse 33, mg.).
If I mistake not, this is the one passage in the
New Testament that tells of our reaction to the rapture call. We may have
thought that when the Son of man comes we shall be taken up automatically, as
it were, because of what we read in 1 Corinthians 15:51, 52: "We shall all be
changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump ..." Well,
however we reconcile the two passages, this one in Luke's Gospel should at
least make us pause and reflect; for the emphasis is here very strongly upon
one being taken and the other left. It is a matter of our reaction to the call
to go, and on the basis of this a most urgent appeal is made to us to be ready
(compare Matt. 24:42).
There is surely a reason for this. Clearly that
call is not going to produce a miraculous last-minute change in us out of all
relation to our previous walk with the Lord. No, in that moment we shall
discover our heart's real treasure. If it is the Lord Himself, then there will
be no backward look. A backward glance decides everything. It is so easy to
become more attached to the gifts of God than to the Giver -- and even, I
should add, to the work of God than to God Himself.
Let me illustrate. At the present time[17] I am
writing a book. I have finished eight chapters and I have another nine to
write, about which I am very seriously exercised before the Lord. But if the
call to `come up hither' should come and my reaction were to be `What about my
book?' the answer might well be, `All right, stay down and finish it!' That
precious thing which we are doing downstairs `in the house' can be enough to
pin us down, a peg that holds us to earth.
It is all a question of our living by the soul or
by the spirit. Here in this passage in Luke, we have depicted the soul-life in
its engagement with the things of the earth -- and mark you, not sinful things
either. The Lord only mentioned marrying, planting, eating, selling -- all
perfectly legitimate activities with which there is nothing essentially wrong.
But it is occupation with them, so that your heart goes out to them, that is
enough to pin you down. The way out of that danger is by the losing of the
soul. This is beautifully illustrated in the action of Peter when he
recognized the risen Lord Jesus by the lake-side. Though with the others he
had returned to his former employment, there was now no thought of the ship,
nor even of the net full of fishes so miraculously provided. When he heard
John's cry of recognition: "it is the Lord", we read that "he cast himself into
the sea".
That is true detachment. The question at issue
is always, Where is my heart? The cross has to work in us a true spiritual
detachment from anything and anyone outside of the Lord Himself.
But, even here, we are as yet only dealing with
the more outward aspects of the soul's activity. The soul giving rein to its
affections, the soul asserting itself and trying to manipulate things, the soul
becoming preoccupied with things, the soul becoming preoccupied with things on
the earth: these are still small things, and do not yet touch the real heart
of the matter. There is something which is deeper yet, and which I will try
now to explain.
The Cross And Fruitfulness
Let us read again John 12:24,25. "Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it
abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit. He that loveth
his life (Greek `soul', as in the above passages) loseth it; and he that hateth
his life (`soul') in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."
Here we have the inward working of the Cross of
which we have been speaking -- the losing of the soul -- linked with and
likened to that aspect of the death of the Lord Jesus Himself which we have
already seen depicted in the grain of wheat, namely, His death with a view to
increase. The end in view is fruitfulness. There is a grain of wheat with
life in it, but "it abideth alone". It has the power to impart its life to
others; but to do so it must go down into death.
Now we know the way the Lord Jesus took. He
passed into death, and, as we saw earlier, His life emerged in many lives. The
Son died, and came forth as the first of "many sons". He let go His life that
we might receive it. It is in this aspect of His death that we are called to
die. It is here that He makes clear the value of conformity to His death,
which is that we lose our own natural life, our soul, in order that we may
become life-imparters, sharing thereafter with others the new life of God which
is in us. This is the secret of ministry, the path of real fruitfulness to
God. As Paul says: "We which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus'
sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So
then death worketh in us, but life in you" (2 Cor. 4:11,12).
We are coming to our point. There is new life in
us, if we have received Christ. We all have that precious possession, the
treasure in the vessel. Praise the Lord for the reality of His life within us!
But why is there so little expression of that life? Why is there an `abiding
alone'? Why is it not overflowing and imparting life to others? Why is it
scarcely making itself apparent even in our own lives? The reason why there is
so little sign of life where life is present is that the soul in us is
enveloping and confining that life (as the husk envelopes the grain of wheat)
so that it cannot find outlet. We are living in the soul; we are working and
serving in our own natural strength; we are not drawing from God. It is the
soul that stands in the way of the springing up of life. Lose it; for
that way lies fullness.
A Dark Night -- A Resurrection Morn
So we come back to the almond rod, which was
brought into the sanctuary for a night -- a dark night in which there was
nothing to be seen -- and then in the morning it budded. There you have set
forth the death and resurrection, the life yielded up and the life fained, and
there you have the ministry attested. But how does this work out in practice?
How do I recognize that God is dealing with me in this way?
First we must be clear about one thing: the soul
with its fund of natural energy and resource will continue with us until our
death. Till then there will be an unending day-by-day need for the Cross to
operate in us, dredging deeply that well-spring of nature. This is the
life-long condition of service that is laid down in the words: "Let him deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Mark 8:34). We never get past
that. He who evades it "is not worthy of me" (Matt. 10:38); he "cannot be my
disciple" (Luke 14:27). Death and resurrection must remain an abiding
principle of our lives for the losing of the soul and the uprising of the
Spirit.
Yet here too there may be a crisis that, once
reached and passed, can transform our whole life and service for God. It is a
wicket gate by which we may enter upon an entirely new pathway. Such a crisis
occurred in the life of Jacob at Peniel. It was the `natural man' in Jacob
that was seeking to serve God and to attain His end. Jacob knew well that God
had said: "The elder shall serve the younger", but he was trying to compass
that end through his own ingenuity and resource. God had to cripple that
strength of nature in Jacob, and that He did when He touched the sinew of
Jacob's thigh. Jacob continued to walk thereafter, but he continued to be
lame. He was a different Jacob, as his change of name implies. He had his
feet and he could use them, but the strength had been touched, and he limped
from an injury from which he would never quite recover.
God must bring us to a point -- I cannot tell you
how it will be, but He will do it -- where, through a deep and dark experience,
our natural power is touched and fundamentally weakened, so that we no longer
dare trust ourselves. He has had to deal with some of us very harshly, and
take us through difficult and painful ways, in order to get us there. At
length there comes a time when we no longer `like' to do Christian work --
indeed we almost dread to do things in the Lord's Name. But then at last it is
that He can begin to use us.
I can tell you this, that for a year after I was
converted I had a lust to preach. It was impossible to stay silent. It was as
though there was something moving within me that drove me forward, and I had to
keep going. Preaching had become my very life. The Lord may graciously allow
you to go on a long while like that -- and not only so but with a fair measure
of blessing -- until one day that natural force impelling you is touched, and
from then on you no longer do it because you want to do it but because the Lord
wants it. Before that experience you preached for the sake of satisfaction you
got from serving God in that way; and yet sometimes the Lord could not move you
to do one thing that He wanted done. You were living by the natural
life, and that life varies a good deal. It is the slave of your temperament.
When emotionally you are set on His way you go ahead at full speed, but when
your emotions are directed the other way you are reluctant to move at all, even
when duty calls. You are not pliable in the Lord's hands. He has therefore to
weaken that strength of preference, of like and dislike, in you, until you will
do a thing because He wants it and not because you like it. You may enjoy it
or you may not, but you will do it just the same. It is not that you can
derive a certain satisfaction from preaching or from doing this or that work
for God, and therefore you do it. No, you do it now because it is the will of
God, and regardless of whether or not it gives you conscious joy. The true joy
you know in doing His will lies deeper than your variable emotions.
God is bringing you to the place where He has but
to express a wish and you respond instantly. That is the spirit of the Servant
(Psalm 40:7,8), but such a spirit does not come naturally to any of us.
It comes only when our soul, the seat of our natural energy and will and
affections, has known the touch of the Cross. Yet such a servant-spirit is
what He seeks and will have in us all. The way to it may be a painful,
long-drawn-out process with some of us, or it may be just one stroke; but God
has His ways and we must have regard to them.
Every true servant of God must know at some time
that disabling from which he can never recover; he can never be quite the same
again. There must be that established in you which means that from henceforth
you will really fear yourself. You will fear to do anything `out from'
yourself, for, like Jacob, you know what kind of sovereign dealing you will
incur if you do it; you know what a bad time you will have in your own heart
before the Lord if you move out on the impulse of your soul. You have known
something of the chastening hand of a loving God upon you, a God who "dealeth
with you as with sons" (Heb. 12:7). The Spirit Himself bears witness in your
spirit to that relationship, and to the inheritance and glory that are ours "if
so be that we suffer with him" (Rom. 8:16,17); and your response to the `Father
of our spirits' is: "Abba, Father".
But when this is really established in you, you
have come to a new place which we speak of as `resurrection ground'. Death in
principle may have had to be wrought out to a crisis in your natural life, but
when it has, then you find God releases you into resurrection. You discover
that what you have lost is coming back -- though not as before. The principle
of life is at work in you now -- something that empowers and strengthens you,
something that animates you, giving you life. From henceforth what you have
lost will be brought back - but now under discipline, under control.
Let me make this quite clear again. If we want
to be spiritual people, there is no need for us to amputate our hands or feet;
we can still have our body. In the same way we can have our soul, with the
full use of its faculties; and yet the soul is not now our life-spring. We are
no longer living in it, we are no longer drawing from it and living by it; we
use it. When the body becomes our life we live like beasts. When the soul
becomes our life we live as rebels and fugitives from God -- gifted, cultured,
educated, no doubt, but alienated from the life of God. But when we come to
live our life in the Spirit and by the Spirit, though we still use our soul
faculties just as we do our physical faculties, they are now the servants of
the Spirit; and when we have reached that point God can really use us.
But the difficulty with many of us is that dark
night. The Lord graciously laid me aside once in my life for a number of
months and put me, spiritually, into utter darkness. It was almost as though
He had forsaken me -- almost as though nothing was going on and I had really
come to the end of everything. And then by degrees He brought things back
again. The temptation is always to try to help God by taking things back
ourselves; but remember, there must be a full night in the sanctuary -- a full
night in darkness. It cannot be hurried; He knows what He is doing.
We would like to have death and resurrection put
together within one hour of each other. We cannot face the thought that God
will keep us aside for so long a time; we cannot bear to wait. And I cannot
tell you how long He will take, but in principle I think it is quite safe to
say this, that there will be a definite period when He will keep you there. It
will seem as though nothing is happening; everything you valued is slipping
from your grasp. There confronts you a blank wall with no door in it.
Seemingly everyone else is being blessed and used, while you yourself have been
passed by and are losing out. Lie quiet. All is in darkness, but it is only
for a night. It must indeed be a full night, but that is all. Afterwards you
will find that everything is given back to you in glorious resurrection; and
nothing can measure the difference between what was before and what now is!
I was sitting one day at supper with a young
brother to whom the Lord had been speaking on this very question of our natural
energy. He said to me, `It is a blessed thing when you know the Lord has met
you and touched you in that fundamental way, and that disabling touch has been
received.' There was a plate of biscuits between us on the table, and I picked
one up and broke it in half as though to eat it. Then, fitting the two pieces
together again carefully, I said, `It looks all right, but it is never quite
the same again, is it? When once your back is broken, you will yield ever
after to the slightest touch from God.'
That is it. The Lord knows what He is doing with
His own, and He has left no aspect of our need unmet in His Cross, that the
glory of the Son may be manifested in the sons. Disciples who have gone this
way can, I believe, truly echo the words of the apostle Paul, who could claim
to serve God "in my spirit in the gospel of his Son" (Rom. 1:9). They have
learned, as he had, the secret of such a ministry: "We ... worship by the
Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh"
(Phil. 3:3).
Few can have led a more active life than Paul's.
To the Romans he puts it on record that he has preached the Gospel from
Jerusalem to Illyricum (Rom. 15:19) and that he is ready now to go on to Rome
(1:10) and thence, if possible, to Spain (15:24,28). Yet in all this service,
embracing as it does the whole Mediterranean world, his heart is set on one
object only -- the uplifting of the One who has made it all possible. "I have
therefore my glorying in Christ Jesus in things pertaining to God. For I will
not dare to speak of any things save those which Christ wrought through me, for
the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed" (Rom. 15:17,18). That is
spiritual service.
May God make each one of us, as truly as he was,
"a bondservant of Jesus Christ".