Winter 2002
Taking up our Cross

El-Bethel

How great and precious is the experience of that soul, who can look into the face of another and joyfully exclaim, “I am delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be manifested in my mortal flesh.”

When our union with Jesus through His work upon the Cross is effectively working in our lives, only then can we show forth the excellence of He who called us into this marvelous light. It is when the power of the Word is working in us that we are able to impart the living Word to others.

There are two inseparable steps that the Lord uses to bring us into this experience. These steps are, first, our identification with the Lord in His death on the cross, and, second, our identity with Him in resurrection life and power.

As the Holy Spirit makes known to us the commitment and obedience that led Jesus to the cross, our hearts go out to Him in love and worship, and we are lifted into the place where we are able to identify with Him in His death and resurrection. As we behold the joy of being transformed into His image in resurrection life, we are changed by His presence and begin to experience “the realm of spiritual reality.” Here, we see glimpses of the King in all His resurrection beauty, and we are enabled to enter into a Kingdom relationship with Him.

As we cry out in a deepening hunger, “Father, make me like Jesus,” the Holy Spirit will quicken our understanding of the deeper meaning of this intense spiritual desire, and step by step, the way of entrance will begin to unfold before us. It is one thing to see our great privileges in Christ, but it is another to possess them.

In order to have the life of Jesus manifested in us, we must die daily. As we appropriate the power of our union with Christ in His death by reckoning ourselves dead in Him, the marvelous work which our Lord has already done for us, will be applied to every weakness, to every movement of the flesh, and every attack of the enemy. We will receive His life and strength to enable us to rise above all these things and overcome.

We cannot put on any attribute of Christ, until the opposite fleshly trait has been removed by our identification with Christ in His death. We cannot be adorned with a meek and quiet spirit, when we are already controlled by a spirit of self-esteem and self- assertion. We cannot dwell in holy quietness before God, which comes from His presence alone, when we are clinging to the noise and clamor of our own activities and opinions.

These have to do with the movements and frailties of the human nature, to which we must die daily, if we would go from victory to victory and from glory to glory, as we die to these movements and temptations, and rise into identification with our Lord in His resurrection power and life. The Lord has made every provision for a full and perfect victory, but there is no victory without a battle.

God is loving and tender. His desire is so great for us to shine forth in an ever increasing likeness of “the Son of His love,” that as rapidly as we will allow, He will make opportunities for us to take up our cross and die to those self seeking attributes which occupy the place of His abiding presence. It is in our body that the life of our Lord is to be manifested, which will increase until “that day” when He will be seen through us in His full glory.

The Lord is always gracious and will never leave the honest soul in ignorance of his condition; but will reveal it as fast as that soul can endure. We will come to see how we have been protecting ourselves from death. Then the Holy Spirit will whisper within us the precious words, “Take up your cross daily, that the life of Christ might be manifested as you follow Him .”

Here is the real test. Many have come thus far, but when they begin to comprehend what it will mean in suffering, humiliation, and death, in order to have the life of Christ fully manifested, they cannot pay the price. They may not voice their intention of turning back, but they turn away from the cross that is before them and choose something of lesser value.

How different it is with those who set their faces like a flint, and let God increase their desire to be like their Lord. The Christly attributes grow clearer and clearer, until the life of Christ in all its beauty and glory is manifested in their mortal bodies, where the weaknesses and defects of the flesh had previously been in control.

Jesus was not resurrected and glorified without first dying. Neither can His followers be transfigured into His likeness in resurrection life, unless the power of His death is working daily in every avenue of their being. There is a continual passing through this process. Not that we are always dying to the same things. Rather, we are to go from grace to grace and victory to victory. The battle fields of yesterday with its enemies, will never again have power over us, if we gained the victory as an overcomer.

Now we are ready to face the battles of tomorrow, and in victory we can say,

“You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals;
For You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by
Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people
and nation, And have made us kings and priests to our
God; And we shall reign on the earth.” Rev 5:9-10 NKJV.