The Cross and the Way of Life

None of you can be My disciples unless you give up everything. (Luke 14:33 GW)

Nothing is truly established until it has been yielded up and has received the brand of the Cross upon it. Have you got that? Even though that may have been given to you from God, there is still always the danger of something in ourselves impinging upon something that God has given us. We insinuate ourselves into it, and make it ours somehow. This Self! This flesh! Oh, yes, God gives us a ministry and then we get hold of it and become jealous about our ministry and afraid of other people getting in our way and taking our ministry away from us; interfering with our ministry, you see. The flesh comes up in that way and in so many other directions and connections. God does something, and then we come into it. We get into the picture.

Somehow or other this flesh cannot keep itself out of even the things that God does by a miracle. We turn them to the glorification or the gratification of this flesh of ours, and even a thing which God may give ”“ and you are thinking perhaps of different things which God may give ”“ will never be established and confirmed until it has been yielded up and knows the mark of death to ourselves and that is only alive for and unto God, and we are only alive for and unto God in that connection, whatever it may be. The Cross is the way of Life in everything and immediately the Cross is nullified by this thing upon which the Cross says, "No, No!" Immediately anything of that comes up again, we counter the life of that thing, we strangle its life, we limit its life. We not only arrest the progress, but we bring into smallness God’s intention of multiplication. Why cannot God increase? And the answer is clearly and definitely this: that somehow or other man has come into this business of God and turned it to himself. The Cross has not been kept in its place to give God a clear, full, free way.

By T. Austin-Sparks from: The Cross and the Way of Life - Chapter 4

"We cannot produce from this nature anything acceptable to God. All that can ever come to God is in Christ alone, not in us. It never will, in this life, be in us as ours. It will always be the difference between Christ and ourselves. Though He be resident within us, He and He only is the object of the Divine good pleasure and satisfaction; and the one basic lesson you and I have to learn in this life, under the Holy Spirit’s tuition and revelation and discipline is that He is
other than we are….When you have come to your best, there is still a gulf between you and the beginnings of Christ that cannot be bridged”.

By T. Austin-Sparks From https://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001033.html

Thank you brother, "The School of Christ” by T Austin Sparks is an excellent book, and we can see that Christ is so different from ourselves, and that’s why the Lord has called us to die to self so that Christ might live his life through us.

We say, ‘Oh God, Yes I would like to be dead to that. Is that possible? How can I die again?’ Well, you CAN’T die again, but you can enter into HIS death. You can claim HIS death as YOUR death. You can reckon: Romans 6:9, 10, "Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.” Now, based upon what HE has done: "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” He doesn’t hold something out there for you to do also; because if you’ve got to do something then it’s not grace. If you do something, it’s not grace. ‘Well, tell me what I can do!’ You can ACCEPT what He HAS DONE! You can open your heart toward what He has done, and His death will begin to work in you: not that death of judgment, but that death of grace. His death ”“ death to sin will begin to work in you, and with the working of His death in you, His Life is released! That is the daily working: that is the daily death. That is the death we face every day in the releasing of His Life, but it is NOT the condemning death; it’s not the judgmental death. It’s the DEATH OF GRACE; it’s the death that grace has provided! Grace has provided such a death. Grace has provided such a sacrifice. Who deserved it? Nobody! Who can die such a death? No one! Again I’ll say: not the blood
of an Egyptian, not the blood of an Israelite. It had to be the blood of The Lamb!
Nothing but The Lamb could die such a death ”“ nobody!