This gives us the answer to the question so often asked, and of which
the meaning is so seldom clearly apprehended: How can I die to self?
The death to self is not your work, it is God's work. In Christ _you
are dead_ to sin the life there is in you has gone through the process
of death and resurrection; you may be sure you are indeed dead to sin.
But the full manifestation of the power of this death in your
disposition and conduct, depends upon the measure in which the Holy
Spirit imparts the power of the death of Christ And here it is that
the teaching is needed: if you would enter into full fellowship with
Christ in His death, and know the full deliverance from self, humble
yourself. This is your one duty. Place yourself before God in your
utter helplessness; consent heartily to the fact of your impotence to
slay or make alive yourself; sink down into your own nothingness, in
the spirit of meek and patient and trustful surrender to God. Accept
every humiliation, look upon every fellow-man who tries or vexes you,
as a means of grace to humble you. Use every opportunity of humbling
yourself before your fellow-men as a help to abide humble before God.
God will accept such humbling of yourself as the proof that your whole
heart desires it, as the very best prayer for it, as your preparation
for His mighty work of grace, when, by the mighty strengthening of His
Holy Spirit, He reveals Christ fully in you, so that He, in His form
of a servant, is truly formed in you, and dwells in your heart. It is
the path of humility which leads to perfect death, the full and
perfect experience that we are dead in Christ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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