It is not easy for us to learn
this lesson by J. R. Miller. If anyone would come
after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and
follow me. For whoever wants to save his
life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save
it." Luke 9, 23, 24. Only as we learn to die to self
do we become like Christ. Human nature seeks all for self
and none for Christ. Becoming a Christian is the taking
of Christ into the life. in the place of self. Then all
is changed. Life has a new center, a new
aim. Christ comes first. His plan
for our lives is accepted instead of our own. It is no more what
we would like to do, but what does the Master want us to do? It is no longer the pressing
of our own will, but may your will, not mine, be done. This
is the foundation of all Christian living, the dying of self, and
the growing of Christ in the heart. So long as there remains
any self-will, any unsubmission, any spirit of disobedience, any
unconquered self asserting its authority against the will of
Christ, just so long is our consecration incomplete. This law of the dying
of self and the magnifying of Christ is the only way to true
usefulness. Not until self has been renounced
is anyone ready for true Christian service. while we are thinking
how this or that will affect us, whether it will pay us to
make this sacrifice or that self-denial, while we are consulting our own
ease, our own comfort, our own interest or advantage in any
form, we have not yet learned fully what the love of Christ
means, this law of the dying of self, and the magnifying of
Christ is the secret of Christian peace. When Christ is small and
self is large, life cannot be deeply restful. Everything annoys
us. We grow impatient of whatever
breaks our comfort. We grieve over little trials. We find causes for discontent
in merest trifles. We resent whatever would hinder
or oppose us. There is no blue sky in the picture
of which self is the center. But when self decreases and Christ
increases, then the life of friction and worry is changed into quietness
and peace. When the glory of Christ streams
over this little, cramped, fretted, broken life of ours, peace comes,
and the love of Christ brightens every spot and sweetens all bitterness. Trials are easy to bear when
self is small and Christ is large. This lesson has its very practical
bearing on all our common, everyday life. Naturally, we want to have
our own way. We like to carry out our own
plans and ambitions. We are apt to feel, too, that
we have failed in life when we cannot realize these hopes. But
this is the world's standard. The successful worldling is the
one who is able to master all life's circumstances and make
them serve him. But the greatest thing possible
in any life is to have the divine plan for it fulfilled, even though
it thwarts every human hope and dashes away every earthly dream. It is not easy for us to learn
this lesson, that God's ways are always better for us than
our own. We make our little plans and
begin to carry them out. We think we have all things arranged
for our greatest happiness and our best good. Then God's plan
breaks in upon ours, and we look down through our tears upon the
shattered fragments of our fine plans. All seems wreck, loss
and disaster, But no, it is only God's larger, wiser, better plan
Displacing our little, imperfect, short-sighted one. It is true
that God really thinks about our lives and has a purpose of
His own for them, a place He would have us fill, a work He
would have us to do. It seems when we think of it
that this is scarcely possible, that each one of the lives of
His countless children should be personally and individually
thought about by the Father. Yet we know that this is true
of the least and lowliest of believers. Surely if God cares
enough for us to make a plan for our life, a heavenly plan,
it must be better than any plan of ours could be. It is a high
honor, therefore, for His plan to take the place of ours, whatever
the cost and the pain may be to us.