July 8
We were
dead and buried with Him in baptism, so that just as He was raised from the
dead by that splendid Revelation of the Father's power so we too might rise to
life on a new plane altogether. If we have, as it were, shared His death, let
us rise and live our new lives with Him (Romans 6:5 Phillips).
In our
union with Christ in His death, we cease and He begins, and from the beginning
He becomes the all. That is a progressive thing, as well as a basic thing. It
is a thing all-inclusive in its meaning, in its intent, but it is also
progressive. We have to accept the fullness of that thing in an act. We have to
take the position quite definitely and consciously that now, in accepting our
union with Christ in His death, this is to work out in our having no more place
at all, and that whenever we come into evidence we shall be smitten, we shall
be put aside, we shall not be allowed to go on. We have to accept that once for
all in a definite act of commitment, that from henceforth everything that is of
self is going to be smitten unsparingly with that Cross, and whenever self
comes in it will not be allowed to have a standing.
We had
better settle it once for all, and have a dealing with the Lord on that
inclusive, comprehensive, and utter ground, that He will make His own meaning
in that real; not our understanding of it, not our grasp or apprehension of it,
not what we think to be the "I" which is to be forbidden, but what He
knows to be the "I"; not the measure of our knowledge of ourselves,
but His knowledge of us. There will be revealed a very great deal more that is
"I" than has ever entered into our thought or imagination. Self,
then, not as we know it, but as He knows it through and through, is to be
brought under the power of that Cross, and this we accept in an act.
By T. Austin-Sparks from: The Risen Lord and the Things Which Cannot be Shaken -
Chapter 11
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