“Every man that striveth in the games is temperate in all things.” “I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage.” –1_Corinthians 9:25, 27.

Paul here reminds us of the well-known principle that anyone competing for a prize in the public games is “temperate in all things.” Everything, however attractive, that might be a hindrance in the race is given up or set aside. And this in order to obtain an earthly prize. And shall we, who strive for an incorruptible crown, and that Christ may be Lord of all — shall we not be temperate in all things that could in the very least prevent our following the Lord Jesus with an undivided heart?

Paul says: “I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage.” He would allow nothing to hinder him. He tells us: “This one thing I do: I press towards the mark for the prize.” No self-pleasing in eating and drinking, no comfort or ease, should for a moment keep him from showing the spirit of the cross in his daily life, or from sacrificing all, like his Master. Read the following four passages which comprise his life-history: 1_Corinthians 4:11-13; 2_Corinthians 4:8-12, 6:4-10, 11:23-27. The cross was not only the theme of his preaching, but the rule of his life in all its details.

We need to pray God that this disposition may be found in all Christians and preachers of the gospel, through the power of the Holy Spirit. When the death of Christ works with power in the preacher, then Christ’s life will be known among the people. Let us pray that the fellowship of the cross may regain its old place, and that God’s children may obey the injunction: “Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” He humbled Himself and became obedient unto the death of the cross. For, “if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection” (Romans 6:5).

“Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.” “So then death worketh in us, but life in you.” –2_Corinthians 4:10,12.

Paul here is very bold in speaking of the intimate union that there was between Christ living in him and the life he lived in the flesh, with all its suffering. He had spoken (Galatians 2:20) of his being crucified with Christ, and Christ living in him. Here he tells how he was always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus; it was through that that the life also of Jesus was manifested in his body. And he says that it was because of the death of Christ was thus working in and through him that Christ’s life could work in them.

We often speak of our abiding in Christ. But we forget that that means the abiding in a crucified Christ. Many believers appear to think that when once they have claimed Christ’s death in the fellowship of the cross, and have counted themselves as crucified with Him, that they may now consider it as past and done with. They do not understand that it is in the crucified Christ, and in the fellowship of His death, that they are to abide daily and unceasingly. The fellowship of the cross is to be the life of a daily experience, the self-emptying of our Lord, His taking the form of a servant, His humbling Himself and becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross — this mind that was in Christ is to be the disposition that marks our daily life.

“Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus.” This is what we are called to as much as Paul. If we are indeed to live for the welfare of men around us, if we are to sacrifice our ease and pleasure to win souls for our Lord, it must be true of us, as of Paul, that we are able to say: Death worketh in us, but life in those for whom we pray and labor. For it is in the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ that the crucified Lord can live out and work out His life in us and through us.

Let us learn the lesson that the abiding in Christ Jesus, for which we have so often prayed and striven, is nothing less than the abiding of the Crucified in us, and we in Him.

“How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your conscience?” –Hebrews 9:14.

The cross is Christ’s highest glory. The glory which He received from the Father was entirely owing to His having humbled Himself to the death of the cross. “Wherefore also God highly exalted Him.” The greatest work which the Holy Spirit could ever do in the Son of God was when He enabled Him to yield Himself a sacrifice and an offering for a sweet-smelling savour. And the Holy Spirit can now do nothing greater or more glorious for us than to lead us into the fellowship and likeness of that crucified life of our Lord.

Have we not here the reason that our prayers for the mighty working of the Holy Spirit are not more abundantly answered? We have prayed too little that the Holy Spirit might glorify Christ in us in the fellowship and the conformity to His sufferings. The Spirit, who led Christ to the cross, is longing and is able to maintain in us the life of abiding in the crucified Jesus.

The Spirit and the cross are inseparable. The Spirit led Christ to the cross; the cross brought Christ to the throne to receive the fullness of the Spirit to impart to His people. The Spirit taught Peter at once to preach Christ crucified; it was through that preaching that the three thousand received the Spirit. In the preaching of the gospel, in the Christian life, as in Christ, so in us, the Spirit and the cross are inseparable. It is the sad lack of the mind and disposition of the crucified Christ, sacrificing self and the word to win life for the dying, that is one great cause of the feebleness of the Church. Let us beseech God fervently to teach us to say: We have been crucified with Christ; in Him we have died to sin; “always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus.” So shall we be prepared for that fullness of the Spirit which the Father longs to bestow.

“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which He dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.” –Hebrews 10:19,20.

In the temple there was a veil between the Holy Place and the Most Holy. At the altar in the court the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled for forgiveness of sins. That gave the priest entrance into the Holy Place to offer God the incense as part of a holy worship. But into the Most Holy, behind the veil, the high priest alone might enter once a year. That veil was the type of sinful human nature; even though it had received the forgiveness of sin, full access and fellowship with God was impossible.

When Christ died, the veil was rent. Christ dedicated a new and living way to God through the rent veil of His flesh. This new way, by which we now can enter into the Holiest of all, ever passes through the rent veil of the flesh. Every believer “has crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof” (Galatians 5:24). Every step on the new and living way for entering into God’s holy presence maintains the fellowship with the cross of Christ. The rent veil of the flesh has reference, not only to Christ and His sufferings, but to our experience in the likeness of His sufferings.

Have we not here the reason why many Christians can never attain to close fellowship with God? They have never yielded the flesh as an accursed thing to the condemnation of the cross. They desire to enter into the Holiest of All, and yet allow the flesh with its desires and pleasures to rule over them. God grant that we may rightly understand, in the power of the Holy Spirit, that Christ has called us to hate our life, to lose our life, to be dead with Him to sin that we may live to God with Him. There is no way to a full abiding fellowship with God but through the rent veil of the flesh, through a life with the flesh crucified in Christ Jesus. God be praised that the Holy Spirit ever dwells in us to keep the flesh in its place of crucifixion and condemnation, and to give us the abiding victory over all temptations.

“Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.” –Hebrews 12:1,2.

In running a race the eye and heart are ever set upon the goal and the prize. The Christian is here called to keep his eye fixed on Jesus enduring the cross, as the one object of imitation and desire. In our whole life we are ever to be animated by His Spirit as He bore the cross. This was the way that led to the throne and the glory of God. This is the new and living way which He opened for us through the veil of the flesh. It is as we study and realize that it was for His bearing the cross that God so highly exalted Him, that we shall walk in His footsteps bearing our cross after Him with the flesh condemned and crucified.

The impotence of the Church is greatly owing to the fact that this cross-bearing mind of Jesus is so little preached and practiced. Most Christians think that as long as they do not commit actual sin they are at liberty to possess and enjoy as much of the world as they please. There is so little insight into the deep truth that the world, and the flesh that loves the world, is enmity against God. Hence it comes that many Christians seek and pray for years for conformity to the image of Jesus, and yet fail so entirely. They do not know, they do not seek with the whole heart to know, what it is to die to self and the world.

It was for the joy set before Him that Chris endured the cross — the joy of pleasing and glorifying the Father, the joy of loving and winning souls for Himself. We have indeed need of a new crusade with the proclamation: This is the will of God, that as Christ found His highest happiness THROUGH HIS ENDURANCE OF THE CROSS, and received thereby from the Father the fullness of the Spirit to pour down on His people, so it is only IN OUR FELLOWSHIP OF THE CROSS that we can really become conformed to the image of God’s Son. As believers awake to this blessed truth, and run the race ever looking to the crucified Jesus, they will receive power to win for Christ the souls He has purchased on the cross.

“The bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the Holy Place, are burned outside the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.” –Hebrews 13:11-13.

The blood of the sin offering was brought into the Holy Place; the body of the sacrifice was burned outside the camp. Even so with Christ. His blood was presented to the Father; but His body was cast out as an accursed thing, outside the camp.

And so we read in Hebrews 10: “Let us enter into the Holy Place by the blood of Jesus.” And in our text: “Let us go forth unto Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.” The deeper my insight is into the boldness which His blood gives me in God’s presence, so much greater will be the joy with which I enter the Holy Place. And the deeper my insight is into the shame of the cross which He on my behalf bore outside the camp, the more willing shall I be, in the fellowship of His cross, to follow Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.

There are many Christians who love to hear of the boldness with which we can enter into the Holy Place through His blood who yet have little desire for the fellowship of His reproach, and are unwilling to separate themselves from the world with the same boldness with which they think to enter the Sanctuary. The Christian suffers inconceivable loss when he thinks of entering into the Holy Place in faith and prayer, and then feels himself free to enjoy the friendship of the world, so long as he does nothing actually sinful. But the Word of God has said: “Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity against God?” “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world; if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” “Be not conformed to this world.”

To be a follower of Christ implies a heart given up to testify for Christ in the midst of the world, if by any means some may be won. To be a follower of Christ means to be like Him in His love of the cross and His willingness to sacrifice self that the Father may be glorified, and that men may be saved.

Blessed Savior, teach me what it means that I am called to follow Thee outside the camp, bearing Thy reproach, and so to bear witness to Thy holy redeeming love, as it embraces the men who are in the world to win them back to the Father. Blessed Lord, let the spirit and the love that was in Thee be in me too, that I may at any cost seek to win the souls for whom Thou hast died.

“Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness. –1_Peter 2:24.

Here we have in the Epistle of Peter the same lessons that Paul has taught us. First, THE ATONEMENT OF THE CROSS: “Who His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree.” And then THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE CROSS; “That we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness.”

In this last expression we have the great thought that a Christian cannot live unto righteousness except as he knows that he has died unto sin. We need the Holy Spirit to make our death to sin in Christ such a reality that we know ourselves to be forever free from its power, and so yield our members to God as instruments of righteousness. The words give us a short summary of the blessed teaching of Romans 6.

Dear Christian, it cost Christ much to bear the cross, and then to yield Himself for it to bear Him. It cost Him much when He cried: “Now is My soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour.”

Let us not imagine that the fellowship of the cross, of which Peter speaks here, “that we, having died to sins, might live unto righteousness,” is easily understood or experienced. It means that the Holy Spirit will teach us what it is to be identified with Christ in His cross. It means that we realize by faith how actually we shared with Christ in His death, and now, as He lives in us, abide in unceasing fellowship with Him, the Crucified One. This costs self- sacrifice; it costs earnest prayer; it costs a whole-hearted surrender to God and His will and the cross of Jesus; it costs abiding in Christ, and unceasing fellowship with Him.

Blessed Lord, make known to us day by day through the Holy Spirit the secret of our life in Thee: “We in Thee, and Thou in us.” Let Thy Spirit reveal to us that as truly as we died in Thee, Thou now livest in us the life that was crucified and now is glorified in heaven. Let Thy Spirit burn the words deep into our hearts. Having died unto sin, and being forever set free from its dominion, let us know that sin can no more reign over us, or have dominion. Let us in the power of Thy redemption yield ourselves unto God as those who are alive from the dead, ready and prepared for all His will.

“Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” –1_John 3:16.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.” Here our Lord reveals to us the inconceivable love that moved Him to die for us. And now under the influence and in the power of that love dwelling in us, comes the message: “WE OUGHT TO LAY DOWN OUR LIVES FOR THE BRETHREN.” Nothing less is expected of us than a Christ-like life and a Christ-like love, proving itself in all our dealings with our brethren.

The cross of Christ is the measure by which we know how much Christ loves us. That cross is the measure too of the love which we owe to the brethren around us. It is only as the love of Christ on the cross possesses our hearts, and daily animates our whole being, that we shall be able to love the brethren. Our fellowship in the cross of Christ is to manifest itself in our sacrifice of love, not only to Christ Himself, but to all who belong to Him.

The life to which John calls us here is something entirely supernatural and divine. It is only the faith of Christ Himself living in us that can enable us to accept this great command in the assurance that Christ Himself will work it out in us. It is He Himself who calls us: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” Nothing less than this, a dying to our own nature, a faith that our “old man,” our flesh has been crucified with Christ, so that we no longer need to sin — nothing less than this can enable us to say: We love His commandments; this commandment too is not grievous.

But for such fellowship and conformity to the death of Christ, nothing will avail but the daily, unbroken abiding in Christ Jesus which He has promised us. By the Holy Spirit revealing and glorifying Christ in us, we may trust Christ Himself to live out His life in us. He who proved His love on the cross of Calvary, He Himself, He alone can enable us to say in truth: He laid down His life for us; we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. It is only as the great truth of the indwelling Christ obtains a place in the faith of the Church which it has not now, that the Christ-like love to the brethren will become the mark of true Christianity, by which all men shall know that we are Christ’s disciples. This is what will bring the world to believe that God has loved us even as He loved Christ.

“These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.” –Revelation 14:4.

It may not be easy to say exactly what is implied in this following of the Lamb in the heavenly vision. But of this we may be sure, that it will be the counterpart in glory of what it is to follow in the footsteps of the Lamb here upon earth. As the Lamb on earth reveals what the Lamb in heaven would be, so His followers on earth can show forth something of the glory of what it is to follow Him in heaven.

And how may the footsteps of the Lamb be known? “He humbled Himself.” “As a Lamb that is led to the slaughter, He opened not His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). It is the meekness and gentleness and humility that marked Him which calls for His followers to walk in His footsteps.

Our Lord Himself said: “Learn of Me, that I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Paul writes: “Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). And then he teaches us in what that mind consisted: Being in the form of God, He emptied Himself; He was made in the likeness of men; He took the form of a servant; He humbled Himself; He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. The Lamb is our Lord and Lawgiver. He opened the only path that leads to the throne of God. It is as we learn from Him what it means to be meek and lowly, what it means to empty ourselves, to choose the place of the servant, to humble ourselves and become obedient, even unto death, the death of the cross, that we shall find the new and living way that leads us through the rent veil into the Holiest of All.

“Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him the name which is above every name” (ver.9). It is because Christians so little bear the mark of this self-emptying and humiliation even unto death that the world refuses to believe in the possibility of a Christ-filled life.

Children of God, oh come and study the Lamb who is to be your model and your Savior. Let Paul’s words be the keynote of your life: “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me.” Here you have the way to follow the Lamb even to the glory of the throne of God in heaven.

“Unto Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” –Revelation 1:5,6.

Some of my readers may feel that it is not easy to understand the lesson of the cross, or to carry it out in their lives. Do not think of it as a heavy burden or yoke that you have to bear. Christ says: “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” LOVE MAKES EVERYTHING EASY. Do not think of your love to Him, but of His great love to you, given through the Holy Spirit. Meditate on this day and night, until you have the assurance: He loves me unspeakably. It is through the love of Christ on the cross that souls are drawn to Him.

We have here the answer as to what will enable us to love the fellowship of the crucified Jesus. Nothing less than His love poured out through the continual breathing of the Holy Spirit into the heart of every child of God.

“UNTO HIM WHO LOVED US” — Be still, O my soul, and think what this everlasting love is that seeks to take possession of you and fill you with joy unspeakable.

“AND WASHED US FROM OUR SINS IN HIS OWN BLOOD” — Is that not proof enough that He will never reject me; that I am precious in His sight, and through the power of His blood am well-pleasing to God?

“AND HATH MADE US KINGS AND PRIESTS UNTO GOD AND HIS FATHER” — and now preserves us by His power, and will strengthen us through His Spirit to reign as kings over sin and the world, and to appear as priests before God in intercession for others. O Christian, learn this wonderful song, and repeat it until your heart is filled with love and joy and courage, and turns to Him in glad surrender day by day: “To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”

Yes, to Him, who has loved me, and washed me from my sins in His blood, and made me a king and a priest –TO HIM BE THE GLORY IN ALL AGES. Amen.