Yielding Our Rights — Lou Sutera

Knowing Christ in the Power of His Resurrection

Philippians 3, verse 10, Philippians 3, verse 10, and let's see what God says about the tremendous truth we see in Philippians 3, verse 10, Philippians 3, verse 10, that I may know him, says the Apostle Paul, and last night we preached on that statement, that I may know him.

The hard cry of an individual to know God. Now the question is, can I know him or can't I? How intimate can I know, how intimately can I know God? Is there reality in a relationship with God? Is it what some people say, if there isn't more to Christianity, I'm about to quit?

How many times I've heard that in these past few years, there's got to be more, and yet in the words of the Apostle Paul, that I may know him, the cry of his heart to know God, to know Jesus Christ. Now how do we get to know him?

Last night I quoted something at the very end of my message, and I want to quote it again at the beginning of tonight, because I believe it just gets us right into this truth in a marvelous way. The preacher that I was quoting to, who was preaching, and he was saying, God, why is it so many Christians are on bypass meadow, and can't seem to move into the reality of God?

And he said, I asked the question one time when I was preaching to a congregation of people, I asked the question, are you ready to accept Jesus Christ for what you know him to be? Are you ready to accept him for what you know him to be?

And he said, even though people were broken and they were weeping, they would not lie, and not many of them said yes. Most of them said no. And he said, this was a shock to me, that most of them said no, they're not willing to accept Christ for what they know him to be.

Now, that's not much of a statement when I first make it, and you say, I don't seem to understand. I would have voted yes. Really, my Christian friends, there's so much to that, and let's see if God will show us tonight what we need to vote yes about, when we need to accept Christ for what we really know him to be.

And he said, it was such a shock to me, and my eyes were then opened to the life and death struggle that is going on at Calvary, that's going on at the cross. And that's the statement that still got a hold of my heart as I bring this message to you tonight.

When I saw so many Christians, he said, who wouldn't vote yes, I'll accept Christ for what I know him to be, he said, then my eyes were opened to the life and death struggle that goes on at the cross, at Calvary.

So the Apostle Paul says in Philippians 3 .10, that I may know him, now how does he want to know him? He said, that I may know him in the fellowship of, in the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering, being made conformable unto his death.

Three ways in which Paul wants to know Jesus Christ. In the power of his resurrection, in the fellowship of his suffering, being made conformable unto his death. Now I think Paul's chronology is a little mixed up.

Now I don't believe it's mixed up in the wrong way, but even though he's mixed up, he's mixed up in the right way. Now you know, he just comes with the Easter season. The first thing about the Easter season is Good Friday.

And the Easter season talks about Jesus suffered, and then Jesus went to a cross, and he was crucified, and he died and he was put into a tomb, and then he rose from the dead. And that's the chronological order of the Easter season.

But the Apostle Paul's a little mixed up in his chronology. He says, I want to know him in the fellowship of his, in the power of his resurrection. The first thing he talks about is the resurrection. Then he goes back and he says, in the fellowship of his suffering, and be made conformable unto his death.

Now if he would have put that in the proper chronological order, he would have said that I may know him in the fellowship of his suffering, first because he suffered, and be conformed unto his death because then he died, and in the power of his resurrection because then he came through the empty tomb.

Was he mixed up? I believe yes and no. Chronologically yes, but in reality no. What is he really saying? He's saying that I may know him. And the first thing he runs to is the power of his resurrection.

I think the Apostle Paul is saying to you and me tonight, the real essence of knowing Jesus Christ is knowing him in his resurrection life. Knowing him in his resurrection power. Knowing him in his resurrected life.

That's the real essence of knowing Jesus. That's where I want to get, he's saying. That's where I want to arrive. That's the epitome of knowing Christ. Know something about his resurrected life, his resurrection life, and my own life.

The power of that resurrection life. And now he goes back in retrospect and he says, how do I get there? I've got to come through knowing him in the fellowship of his suffering. I've got to come through knowing him, being made conformable unto his death, and then I can know him in his resurrection life.

I really want to get to the resurrection, but how do I get there? Through his suffering, through his death, and then to the resurrection life. Jesus Christ did not come through the tomb, he did not come through the resurrection, until first he went through the suffering and he went to Calvary, he went to the cross, and then resurrection life.

You and I, my Christian friends, need to learn this so specifically, so dynamically, if I you and I can come through to the resurrection life of God, we don't get to the resurrection unless we come through knowing him in the fellowship of his suffering, being made conformable unto his death in the life of the crucifixion, and then we can come through in the resurrection life.

The Fellowship of Christ's Sufferings

Fellowship of his suffering, let's start there. What is that all about? Now we hear a lot about fellowship of these days, we heard about fellowship meetings tomorrow night. We hear about fellowship halls, we hear about fellowship meetings, we hear about fellowship banquets.

We hear about fellowship of all kinds, seemingly synonymous with modern day Christianity. Everybody's talking about fellowship, but my Christian friends, there's one fellowship we don't talk about, it's the fellowship of his sufferings.

Whatever has happened to the fellowship of his suffering? What was that all about? I read in Isaiah 55, verse 4, 5, and 6, it says, We did esteem him stricken, as God gave Isaiah the picture of the crucified Jesus.

We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. With his stripes we are healed, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

What is the suffering of Jesus Christ all about? And we say, when Paul says that I may know him in the fellowship of his suffering, he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, and the iniquities of us all was laid upon him.

In the book of Luke, he said he was wounded in the house of his friends, the fellowship of his suffering. What kind of wounds in the medical terms? Jesus was so beaten, and he was so smitten with the stripes and the cat of nine tails, to where the historian says his back was so bruised that you couldn't see that much, two fingers put together, you couldn't see that much of the flesh of Jesus Christ together in one place without a bruise from the rippings he took.

And the medical aspect of the bruises of Jesus, the wounds he took, they were the contused wounds and lacerated wounds and penetrating wounds and perforating wounds and incisions in his body. His body was broken.

His body was broken for our sins. Samuel Rutherford said, Your Lord and your Redeemer with patience received many a black stroke on his glorious back, and many a buffet of the unbelieving world. And he says of himself, I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked out the hair.

I hid not my face from shame and from spitting. My Christian friends, when we start to talk about wanting to know Jesus, when Paul says that I may know him, the first thing we need to recognize is for us to move into the knowledge of Christ like he wants us to know him and God wants us to know his Son is, we need to start with the fellowship of his sufferings.

And those had something to do with your sin and my sin. He went through all of that physical suffering because your sin was on him and my sin was on him. And when Paul says, I want to move into the same fellowship with him, I wonder, is he not saying before you and I can know him in the fellowship of his suffering?

We're going to have to know what it is to go through the pain and the agony and all the affliction and fear what Jesus Christ felt on his physical body for you to be set free from your sins, for your sins to be covered by his blood, and for you and me to go through whatever pain and agony that we must go through to be right with God in relation to restitution and forgiveness and cleansing and brokenness before God because of the sins of our lives.

We are ready and willing to be broken because of our sin. We're living in a day of dry-eyed alters. We're living in a day of no repentance. We're living in a day of easy believism. We're living in a day where Christians have lost the cross.

We're living in a day of a no-cross Christianity. And my Christian friends, for many of us as Christians, we've only been to the cross once or twice in all of our Christian experience. And that was once when we got saved and number two, when we made a rededication of our life and it's been a long time since we've been back to the cross for cleansing where we recognize our need as sinners and get on our knees and are broken before God because of the sin of our hearts.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say to me, Preacher, I haven't been to an altar. I haven't been to a prayer room. I haven't been on my knees before God for years asking for forgiveness.

Somehow we have the idea because we're Christians, there's no more judgment for sin. But I tell you, my Christian, in this day of a weak anemic idea of sin and the man watering it down to where it's no more black, it's no more white and black, it's gray, a neutral color of gray, no more the scarlet sin has turned to pink.

All of these attitudes have crept in the church to where we don't have Christians who are repenting. Some D .O. Moody said that a Christian will do more repenting and confession of sin after he becomes a Christian than he did to become a Christian.

A Christian who's right with God is going to be a repenting Christian. He's going to be a Christian who's walking in the light as Jesus is in the light. And then it says the blood of Christ is going to keep on cleansing him from all sin, a continual cleansing.

He's going to need the blood and he's going to feel the pain, a broken spirit to be clean and right with God. My Christian friends, when I was reading this verse, Philippians 3 .10, it sort of jumped out at me just a few years ago now.

And the more I see it, and I've preached this truth and expressed it, and more people said, I've never thought like that before. Paul says to know Christ in the fellowship of his suffering, and that had to do, he was wounded for my transgressions.

Will I be willing to go through whatever pain necessary for me to be clean from my sin? Oh, I don't mean to work off, do some penance for your forgiveness. What I mean in relation to seeing ourselves as sinners and breaking before God over sin, and seeing what sin did to my Christ on the cross, and move into that same fellowship, and be not broken over my sin because it did that to my Christ.

And come for that cleansing and thank God for the blood, and the blood will mean so much more, and the cleansing and the forgiveness will mean so much more, because we know a little about the pain of sin, and we've entered into the fellowship of his suffering.

And then we'll pay any price to be right with God. The greatest need in the church of Jesus Christ is for every Christian in God's house, in the Christian world, in the evangelical church, to come before God and say, Lord, I will pay any price.

I will go through whatever means. I will turn over every stone. I will leave no stone unturned, that I shall be clean, that I shall be cleansed, that I shall be right with God, that I shall know what it is to be a Christian, pure and clean before God.

Paul says in Romans 12, we quote that verse so much, he says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, that word beseech means I beg of you, please, brethren. He says, I beg of you, please, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your body a living sacrifice.

What does it mean? I beg of you, please, brethren, by the mercies of God, the mercies of God, that's the message of Calvary. That's where the blood was shed. That's the pain that Jesus Christ went through.

I beg of you, please, by the picture of what Christ went through for your sins, that you take your life and present your body, this physical body as well as your soul, present it to God a living sacrifice.

What does that mean? You bring it to the altar. You bring it for crucifixion. You bring it as a means of sacrifice. You bring it to where there's pain and there's the pain of the incision of the knife of that altar of that sacrificial lamb.

You bring your body to the crucifixion of that flesh. Present your bodies a living sacrifice. Holy, the pain of being holy. Sacrifice, the pain of being holy. Oh, this is what God is saying to us in these days.

Revival, Repentance, and the Contrite Heart

I'll tell you why a lot of people are not interested in the word revival. I'll tell you why a lot of people are so quick to criticize even the use of the word revival. I'll tell you why a lot of people are not interested and why people say, I don't need revival.

I'll tell you why. Because if they start to get close, if they start to move in, they'll start to hear the call of God at their heart that revival is intensely personal and revival deals in the inner man and it deals with the sin of the heart and the life and it's a painful experience.

But I'll tell you what revival is. Revival is coming to the judgment seat early so you don't have to face that judgment seat at that time on some of the issues of your life because you face them now in revival.

The pain of being honest now, to be clean now so that can get under the blood lest that sin follow you to the judgment seat as a Christian. So if it's painful now, imagine what it will be at the judgment seat.

Now again, there's that scripture, the Lord says, a contrite heart and a contrite spirit He will not despise. That has something to do with knowing Christ and the fellowship of His suffering. What does it mean a contrite heart He'll not despise?

He says, God resists of the proud but He gives grace to the humble and a contrite spirit He'll not despise. And He says, He dwells with a contrite and humble spirit to revive the heart of the contrite and to revive the humble spirit.

We talk about revival. It's in the contrite and the humility. In that spirit, that's where God revives. The word contrite means being bruised together. Get it? Being bruised together. Paul says that I may know Him in the fellowship of His suffering.

He was bruised. So why does God dwell with a contrite heart and a contrite spirit? Because the contrite heart is the one that says, Lord, I am willing to be bruised together with Your very heart over sin, my sin, to be clean, to not allow sin to rest and abide in my life.

Take, eat, this is my body which was broken for You. This do in remembrance of me. And that's why Paul says, when you come to eat of the body of Jesus Christ, examine yourself that you don't eat the body unworthily.

I tell you, my Christian friends, our churches ought to have revival just about once a month at least when we have communion service. It ought to be the cleansing of the church. It ought to be the bringing of our hearts together when we dare not touch that communion.

If there's a brother or sister in the church, then we can't say, God bless you, brother. If there's a sin in our heart and life, it remains there. We can't take communion. Oh, that a holy fear of God would come upon the people that He says, examine yourself for this reason.

Because some have taken the body of Jesus unworthily. Some are sickly among you. Some are weakly among you. And some even sleep. Jesus Christ said when He walked in the service, He said, unless you become bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh and drink of my blood, you have no part in me and my kingdom.

What do you think of words like that? I tell you what, bone of His bone, fellowship of His suffering, drink of my blood, His blood was shed because of my sin. In the fellowship of His suffering, you're not going to think lightly of sin.

If you mean business with God, sin is going to be black. And you're going to be broken as you see sin as God sees it in your life. And you're not going to be pointing your finger every place else because you'll have a full-time job with your own heart when you want to enter into the fellowship of His suffering that had to do with your sin.

And God worked in Regina where Fried and Henry Tychov met God over two years ago. I tell you what happened. The Lord was this. Many Christians were saying, oh, I want God to reveal more things about my life.

They were anxious for God to reveal things in their life because they were so anxious to be thoroughly clean with God. Isn't that beautiful? Anxious. Anxious for the pain of transparency. I'm anxious for the pain of the light and what the light will reveal.

Anxious to be open before God. I wonder, are you that way tonight? Fellowship. Somebody said fellowship to me has always meant a sort of mutual enjoyment. Isn't that right? When you think of fellowship, immediately you sort of perk up that talks about mutual enjoyment.

And isn't that a description of what the apostles went through when they were in the presence of a Sanhedrin and they came away from the presence of Sanhedrin after being beaten and harassed by the Sanhedrin and it said they were full of joy that they were considered worthy to suffer for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Isn't that interesting? Here they enjoyed the fellowship of His suffering. Oh, my Christian friends, I believe what God's saying when we want to know Christ in the fellowship of His suffering, that even though there's pain in having our sin revealed, there is joy and there's fellowship with the Christ Himself when we dare to be honest and open with God.

If you say with Paul that I may know Him, Paul says, if you're going to know Jesus Christ, it's going to come when you say, I want to identify with the fellowship of His suffering and I'm going to know the mutual enjoyment of the glory of forgiveness that was provided by that Christ.

Conformity to Christ's Crucifixion

Secondly, Paul says that I may know Him being made conformable unto His death. Conformable unto His death? What kind of a death did He die? If you want to be conformed unto His death, what kind of a death?

It was a crucifixion. We need to know Christ in crucifixion. Inquired of Birmingham, England, the crusades said, young people are taught everything but how to die. We're taught everything but how to die.

I need to know how to die. And he was talking about this in the spiritual realm. We teach each other everything but how to die. And his question was, I need to know how to die. If you need to know how to die, I'll tell you how.

It's crucifixion. Paul says that I may know Him being made conformable unto His death. If I'm going to conform to His death, His death was crucifixion. Palmy said about Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ never wavered in His choices.

This is what crucifixion meant to him. His rule of life and everything was to please God regardless of what the nature, what His natural desires might be. He said, nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.

God's will was the most important thing in his life. God never needed to coerce Jesus. The law of absolute obedience was the guide star of every decision of Jesus. And God honored Christ for that. God's will led Jesus Christ to the cross.

And if God's children follow Jesus Christ's example, said Palmy, if God's children follow Christ's example, it will lead them to the cross. John 12, 20, Except a corn of weed fall into the ground and die, it abides alone.

But if it dies, it shall bring forth much fruit. And those were the words that Jesus said when He was bowing to the cross. When they came and they said, we would see Jesus. The Greeks said, we would see Jesus.

And the first words Jesus said, if you want to see Jesus, I want to tell you something about this Christ. Unless this corn of weed fall into the ground and die, it's going to abide alone. He's going to a cross.

But if it dies, it shall bring forth much fruit. And that scripture goes on to tell us that Jesus was not only talking about His own death, but He was talking about the need of His own children to follow Him in the same relationship.

Go to the cross. Be conformed unto His death. Get on the cross with Jesus. Now, this past week was an interesting thing. In your newspaper, I cut it out since I've come to town. I saw it down in the States.

And you Canadians are right up with us. You have it in your newspaper. It said, Newsmakers. And it was a picture of a man hanging on a cross. Did you see it? You couldn't miss it. A man hanging on a cross in the Philippine Islands.

Twelve men lifted up a man on a cross. And there he was, stripped as Jesus was, clothed and His hands out and a crown of thorns on His brow. And they've got Him hanging on a cross. And He goes through the pain.

I don't know how many times He's done this. I think it's a few times now. At Easter time, at Good Friday, He goes to the cross. And He's doing it as a sacrifice for the extension of the life of His mother and His sick child.

And you look at that and you're taken aback, aghast and horrified. Here's a man, actual man on a cross. He talks about the spiritual. In our papers, He was talking about the spiritual exercise and the dimension it meant to Him hanging on a cross.

In the very agony that Christ went through, He put Himself through it. And we said, That's wrong. That's not right. My Christian friends, I wonder if it isn't a little right. I was in Rome going through the big cathedrals of Rome on one of the tours.

And the missionaries said to me, When you go to a certain cathedral in Rome, pull away from the guided tour and go around the back of the cathedral. And you look up and you'll see something. And so I did.

And when I got there, I saw way up on the top of the cathedral, there was a cross. And on the one side, there was Jesus hanging on the cross. And the missionaries said to me, They said, Look around on the back side of that cross, on the top of that cathedral.

And I looked on the back side. And on the back side, there was someone else hanging on a cross. And that was the Virgin Mary. On top of a cathedral in Rome, the Virgin Mary back to back with her Son hanging on the cross.

And we evangelicals, we say, That's heresy. In years when there was the years of Mary, you'd walk into Catholic hospitals in my country, and the words on the hospital, will save the world through Mary.

And the statement co-redemptrix with Jesus Christ, Mary co-redeemer with Christ. And we would say, That's heresy. That's heresy. Jesus is the Redeemer. And no one can be on a cross with Him. My Christian friends, in the actual sense of the word, that they make Mary a co-redeemer with Christ, they're wrong.

But I tell you, as I look at that thing, and God's truth has come through to my heart in these recent years, in a more real way than ever before, I say to myself, That's not right that Mary alone should be on that cross.

You should be on that cross. And I should be on that cross. And every one of us as evangelicals should be identified on that cross with Christ. That I should know Him being conformed unto His death, and that was crucifixion.

The Apostle Paul said, I am crucified with Christ. That puts us on the cross. Nevertheless, I live life coming out of death. Crucifixion is death. Yet not I, then He's dead again. But Christ liveth in me.

That's the kind of life it is now. It's the life of that Christ on that cross. And the life that I now live, what's the characteristic of it? I live it by the faith of that Son of God. Not faith in that Son of God, but the faith of that Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

What does Paul say in Galatians 6 .24? He says, They that are Christ's have crucified their flesh with the affections and lust thereof. They that are Christ's. Are you a Christian? Every Christian, Paul says, has crucified His flesh with the affections and the lust thereof.

Crucified on the cross. You know, that happened to you when you got saved. I wonder, and you wonder why it is that so many people, when they get saved, there's that first fervor, first love. I wonder why there is, when so many people, when they first get saved, there is that consciousness and that sense that I am giving myself to Jesus Christ.

That comes through so forcibly to the heart of the new convert. And then after a few weeks or a few months, something happens. They lose that joy and they lose that fervor. And there's defeat and all the rest that we know that happens in the lives of so many new Christians.

And it perhaps happened in your life. And I've been wondering why. Why? The Bible says they, their Christ, have crucified their flesh. They went to a cross when they got saved. The sense of I give myself to Jesus.

That was identifying with Him on that cross. They saw Him on a cross. They saw what the cross meant. And they said, yes, Lord, I'll get on that cross with you and identify with you, the Christ of the cross.

And I'll tell you what, there's something about this truth that doesn't come through to us right after we're saved. And there's something about this truth that sometimes in our preaching and our theology, we've missed the message of the crucified life that needs to come through immediately and identify with that thing when we first get saved.

And we come down from that cross and we bring ourselves down from that cross and we take back our life. And we're living in so many realms, just like we did before we were saved. Except for the fact we know the blood is there.

We have been cleansed, but we're living in the defeat of so many areas that we were defeated even before. We need to identify with that cross. You know what God's doing these days of revival? I'll tell you what.

You hear people preaching about dying out to self and the crucified life. I'll tell you what it's all about. It happened when you were saved positionally. It happened when you were saved when you first became a Christian.

But I'll tell you what the problem is. Many of us have never gone out to that crucifixion and we've never attended our own funeral and we've never identified ourselves with that cross. And we've never said and stood back and said, yes, that's my life on that cross.

I'm there. I'm agreeing with God about myself. And there I am, crucified with Christ. What does it mean? It means I've given up all rights to my life. It means I have no will of my own. It means I have no future of my own.

It means I have no family of my own. It means I have no time and no money of my own. I am on a cross. It means I have no rights of my own. I believe, my Christian friend, if the message of the crucified life would start coming through once again, forcibly to God's people in God's house, we would have half of the dissensions in our churches would be ended.

Half of the church splits would no longer be around. Why? How many of our churches are split up because somebody says, I have my rights and who's he to tell me? Dr. Harry Ironside recalled an incident of his boyhood days when he saw two respected Christian brethren in the church that he attended.

And this young boy, Dr. Harry Ironside, when he was just a little boy, he saw these two great Christian leaders in his church. They became angry with one another. He was so shocked as he watched the scene of one getting angry at the other.

One man sprang to his feet and clenching his fist, shouted, I will not allow you to put anything over on me. I will have my rights. And old Scotsman, said Dr. Ironside, rather hard of hearing, leaned forward and cupped his ear with his hand so he could not miss anything of the proceedings that was going on.

What was that my brother? He said. The old Scotsman said. What was that my brother? He asked. I didn't quite get your point. I said, I will have my rights, retorted the man. But surely you don't mean that, said the old Scotsman, do you?

If you insisted on what was coming to you, you would be in hell. Jesus did not come to get his rights. He came to get his wrongs and he got them. The wise old gentleman's words struck home for a moment.

The indignant protester stood there and then tears broke from his eyes. Brethren, he said sorrowfully, I have been all wrong. Handle the case as you think best. Then he sat down with his face in his hands and he sobbed repentantly.

The Lord Jesus Christ left heaven's glory to bear the reproaches of men. He who commanded worlds into being could have demanded justice and put to flight his enemies with a single word. Instead, with patient forbearance and meekness, he endured such contradiction of sinners against himself.

He didn't say, I have my rights. A man on the cross has no rights. He's given them up. Are you set on getting your rights, my Christian? Stop and remember what your Savior did, then let his love free you from the tyranny of a demanding self.

A demanding self that has to be vindicated to have its rights. And the poet wrote so often, in this world of sin, our cherished rights we seek in vain. But armed by faith, we still shall win, if thus by grace new heights we gain.

Crucified to the World

The adulterers and adulteresses, said Paul, said James, know ye not that the friendship of this world is enmity with God, whosoever therefore be a friend of the world is an enemy of God? And he was talking to the Christians, Christian adulterers and adulteresses, not physically but spiritually with their Almighty God.

The Bride of Christ adulterers and adulteresses, my Christian friends, when you come to the cross, the cross is going to separate you from the world. What does it mean to be crucified with Christ? It means to be crucified unto the world.

Paul said, I am glorying in the cross by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. What does it mean to be crucified unto the world? Someone said to that tremendous theme, Paul knew that the world crucified Christ and the world was going to crucify him.

He boasted that he who lives as one crucified to the world, that now the world is impotent and it's an enemy that was crucified to Christ. It was this that made him glory in the cross of Christ. It brought about a complete deliverance from the world.

How very different the revelation of Christians to this day and to the world. What is it? Christians today agree that they may not commit the sins that the world allows, but yet they are good friends with the world and they have liberty to enjoy as much of the world as they can.

If only they can keep from open sin. They do not know that the most dangerous source of sin is the love of the world with all of its pleasures. O Christian, said Andrew Murray, when the world crucified Christ, it crucified you with him.

When Christ overcame the world on the cross, he made you an overcomer to the world. He calls you now at whatever cost of self-denial to regard the world in its hostility to God and its kingdom as a crucified enemy over whom the cross can ever keep you conquer.

What a different relationship to the pleasures and attractions of the world the Christian has, who by the Holy Spirit has learned to say, I have been crucified with Christ and the crucified Christ lives in me.

Let us pray to God that the Holy Spirit through whom Christ offered himself on the cross may reveal to us in power what it means to glory in the cross of our Lord through whom the world has been crucified unto us.

Daily Dependence at the Foot of the Cross

And secondly, my Christian friend, when I think of the cross, I think of the fact that we have to be found at the foot of that cross as a daily way of life. A lady in Grand Rapids said that friend took a trip to the foot of the cross.