Paul
says: “Far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ, through which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto
the world.”
What does he mean? It does not matter to me what the world thinks!
It does not matter one wit to me the attitude the world takes! Let it persecute! Let it say what it likes! Let the world defame. Let the world misrepresent. Let the world lie.
Let the whole accepted religious system say what it likes. I have been crucified to this world! I am dead to all that, and that is dead to me!
The cross of the Lord Jesus means the emancipation from the world in that sense.
We shall have to decide, once and for all, as definitely as Calvary was a once and for all thing, that we are not going to be influenced or deterred one little bit in our utterness of abandonment to the Lord by what the world (even the religious world) says and does. When we recognize that, there will be triumph.
Paul was not altogether immune from the consciousness of what was going on against him. To him very often these things meant suffering.
The attitude of the religious world did register itself upon his sensitive spirit, but it was settled with him quite definitely that he could never sacrifice his position one little bit in order to mitigate that suffering, in order to ease up that situation, in order to be more popular with men than he was.
For him the cross meant that if he were to be unpopular universally he was dead to the question of popularity.
We shall never be thoroughgoing Christians until we are there.
~T. Austin Sparks~
What does he mean? It does not matter to me what the world thinks!
It does not matter one wit to me the attitude the world takes! Let it persecute! Let it say what it likes! Let the world defame. Let the world misrepresent. Let the world lie.
Let the whole accepted religious system say what it likes. I have been crucified to this world! I am dead to all that, and that is dead to me!
The cross of the Lord Jesus means the emancipation from the world in that sense.
We shall have to decide, once and for all, as definitely as Calvary was a once and for all thing, that we are not going to be influenced or deterred one little bit in our utterness of abandonment to the Lord by what the world (even the religious world) says and does. When we recognize that, there will be triumph.
Paul was not altogether immune from the consciousness of what was going on against him. To him very often these things meant suffering.
The attitude of the religious world did register itself upon his sensitive spirit, but it was settled with him quite definitely that he could never sacrifice his position one little bit in order to mitigate that suffering, in order to ease up that situation, in order to be more popular with men than he was.
For him the cross meant that if he were to be unpopular universally he was dead to the question of popularity.
We shall never be thoroughgoing Christians until we are there.
~T. Austin Sparks~
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