"SOUL FOOD"
It is only after we have been crucified to the carnal nature that we can bear our daily cross in the true spirit of our Master. It is by the denial or death of sinful self that we enter the state of perfect obedience in which the daily trials and crosses can be borne in deep fellowship with Jesus. The very order of the words of our Savior seems to indicate the steps of experience. "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." Here we have, first, crucifixion of the natural self-life; then the purified soul bearing its daily sufferings and hindrances, which brings it into constant walking and fellowship with Christ. It is this daily cross which leads the sanctified soul into a deeper death to self, according to its love and fervor of obedience. What is our daily cross? It is that one or more things which are unavoidable in our lives, and which produce suffering of body or mind or heart. It is that thing which in our poor judgment seems to hinder the easy flow of our religious life. Sometimes our cross may be composed of a combination of things, but as a general rule, it is some one instrument or cause of suffering to the soul. Were there no suffering of some kind involved, then there could be no cross at all, for the only thing in a cross is its pain. The outward form of the daily cross may change with years, or the same cross may continue till death; but in some form it abides. It is as impossible for the true saint not to have some cross as it is to walk in the sunshine without having shadow. The Holy Ghost gives us to understand plainly that the multitudes of jolly, ease-loving, and easy-going religionists, who bear no daily suffering with Jesus, are only sectarian-born religious bastards, and not really Kingdom-born souls. (see Heb 12:8) It is your daily cross that makes you weep more than any other thing; that sends you to frequent prayer; that leads you to ransack the promises; that makes you cry out, like Jesus, "Father why is this?"; that causes you to put both arms around the neck of your Savior in yearning love; that makes you sick of earth and self; that gives you wistful longings for heaven. Oh, precious old homely, daily cross, what deep, tender, far-reaching effects thou has wrought through all these prayer-paved years!
There is an hallucination about getting free from our daily cross which needs to be broken; it is a daydream worked up in our minds, a beautiful vision that hangs just ahead of us, that someday we will be rid of our cross, that we will have no painful annoyances, and that our feet can fly unimpeded toward heaven. Alas! that so many saints should get their eyes set on this will-o'-the-wisp dream. If you want deep union with Jesus, getting rid of your cross is the very thing to defeat it! There is a better victory than freedom from the daily instrument of pain, and that is to pass into the ocean-depth of the Christ-life where every trial can be borne in exactly the same spirit that Jesus bore. Boundless, tender love is the condition for triumphant bearing of our daily cross. When our cross has driven us so deep into the warm ocean-heart of Jesus that we are kept melted and flooded with quiet, lowly, tender, yearning love for God and His Kingdom, then the cross will have proved its own balsam, and then every trial will be fuel to the flame of love. To love the cross is understood by only a few Christians. People fancy it means loving the cross on which Christ died. No; it means loving that very cross in our lives that drives us into deep one- ness with Christ; it is to meekly, patiently, lovingly embrace to our inner heart the very principal of self-abnegation and self-nothingness. It is often the case that devout Romanists wear hair-cloth and iron or knotted cords next to their skin. All that is too superficial; it does not enter deep enough. Jesus did no such foolish thing. To bear our daily trial as Jesus did, we must take it into our very hearts love, and bear it meekly, quietly, lovingly, as unto God, and not to man.
How long it takes to accept our daily trial as a gift direct from the hands of our Lord! His eyes are on us; He notices our inner feelings, thoughts, and choices as to our cross. The spirit in which we bear our trials here will mark the grade of our standing in the world to come. It is persevering prayer that we get on the sunny side of every sorrow, and on the triumphant side of every trial.
It is the sharp grain of sand cutting its way into the oyster that is enveloped with the life- juices of the creature and turned into a pearl; so our daily cross, cutting its way into our life's core by being folded round and round with many tears and loving prayers, becomes in our souls the very pearl of Christ-likeness, and more valuable than all our chosen blessings. The Holy Ghost can reveal to us the very disposition in which Jesus bore His daily trials, and when we bear ours in the same spirit, then indeed do we have fellowship with Him!
If it does not please our Father to remove our trials, it is because He wants us to seek and
receive an overflow of tender love that will bear us on over and through the trials and in
spite of them. Pure, limitless love is the only true victory over trial. Intense love for Jesus
is the only water that can make our thorny cross ripen its fruit; so do not cut down your
cross, but water it with more love and prayer, and wait for its golden apples.
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