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. 35 For whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever will lose his soul-life for My sake and the gospel's shall save it.
We have been terminated in Christ. Now we need to apply this termination to ourselves and to every aspect of our living. Then in our living it will be "no longer I, but Christ, no longer I, but the gospel." This means that we shall be living Christ and living the gospel. This is very different from trying to behave ourselves properly as Christians for the sake of the Lord's glory and for the sake of the effectiveness of the gospel. Let me illustrate the difference between living Christ and the gospel and trying to behave properly for the sake of Christ and the gospel. Suppose a certain brother is working in an office. This brother may say to himself, "My colleagues here in the office realize that I am a Christian. Recently I have preached the gospel to them. Now I should behave myself and be very careful about what I say and do. For the gospel's sake, I need to be careful with my colleagues. " Actually, this is a matter of the brother's own effort. Furthermore, it is an absolutely incorrect understanding of the Lord's word in 8:35. If this brother working in the office has the correct understanding of the Lord's word, he will say to himself, "As a follower of the Lord Jesus, I am a partaker of Him. I have been crucified with Him. Now it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. At work I do not need to try to behave myself. I do not have to exert myself to be so careful. Instead, I should simply live Christ day by day. When I wake up in the morning, I need to call on the Lord Jesus and breathe Him in. As I call on Him, He becomes my breath, the intrinsic and essential element of my inner being, the essence of my living. Then at the office I simply live Him. I shall not deliberately try to preach the gospel to my colleagues, and I shall not worry because of the fact that I have told them that I am in the church. I only care for one thing--for living Christ. All day long, I want to breathe in Christ and then live Him." This is the correct understanding of losing our soul life for the Lord's sake. When we live Christ, we shall certainly live the gospel. As we live Christ, others will see the gospel in our living and not only hear it. Our living will be Christ, and this Christ will become the gospel to others in an actual and practical way. (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. 225-226. 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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