Mark 8:34 And He called the crowd to Him with His disciples and said to them, If anyone wants to follow after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. Gal 2: 20 I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Suppose a brother says, "I thank God that, in His sovereignty, He has given me a wife who causes me to suffer and bear the cross. My wife is a cross given to me by God, and now I must bear this cross." This is a serious misunderstanding of what it means to bear the cross. A married brother does not need to learn how to suffer. Rather, he needs to realize that, as a husband, he has already been terminated in Christ and that now he should live as a terminated husband, simply enjoying Christ's termination. Then he may say to his wife, "Dear, I am not trying to be a good husband, to be a kind and gentle husband. I am here as a terminated husband. The more I am willing to experience Christ's termination, the better I shall be as a husband, for then Christ will live in me. As He lives in me, He will be your husband through me." To follow after the Lord is to partake of Him, enjoy Him, experience Him, and let Him become our very being. In order to come after the Lord in this way, we need to deny ourselves. We need to apply to ourselves the termination Christ has accomplished on the cross. This means that to bear our cross is to apply Christ's termination to ourselves. When we do this, we become a crossed-out person, not a suffering person. Then we can testify, "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." (c) Living Stream Ministry.
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Witness Lee, Life-study of Mark, pp. 222-223. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
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