Christ is all, and in all.
(Colossians 3:11)
Beloved, the Cross was intended
only to make the Lord Jesus all, and in all, for us; and is it not true that,
because of the way that the Lord has dealt with us, the way in which He has
applied the Cross, planting us into that death and burial, we know Him in a way
in which we never knew Him before? Is it not by that way that He has become what
He is to us, ever more and more dear to our hearts? The increase of the Lord
Jesus in and to us is by the way of the Cross. We know quite well that our chief
enemy is ourselves, our flesh. This flesh gives us no rest, no peace, no
satisfaction; we have no joy in it. It obsesses, engrosses, and constantly struts
across our path to rob us of the very joy of living. What is to be done with it?
Well, in and by the Cross we are delivered from ourselves; not only from our
sins, but from ourselves; and being delivered from ourselves we are delivered
into Christ, and Christ becomes far more than we.
It is a painful process, but it
is a blessed issue; and those amongst us who may have had the greatest agony
along this line would, I believe, testify that what it has brought to us of the
knowledge and riches of the Lord Jesus has made all the suffering worthwhile.
So the work of the Lord for us and the work of the Lord in us, by the Cross, is
only intended in the Divine thought to make room for the Lord Jesus.