If I brood on the Cross of Christ, I do not become a subjective pietist, interested in my own whiteness; I become dominantly concentrated on Jesus Christ's interests.

Our Lord was not a recluse nor an ascetic, He did not cut Himself off from society, but He was inwardly disconnected all the time.

He was not aloof, but He lived in another world.

He was so much in the ordinary world that the religious people of His day called Him a glutton and a wine-bibber.

Our Lord never allowed anything to interfere with His consecration of spiritual energy.

The counterfeit of consecration is the conscious cutting off of things with the idea of storing spiritual power for use later on, but that is a hopeless mistake.

The Spirit of God has spoiled the sin of a great many, yet there is no emancipation, no fulness in their lives.

The kind of religious life we see abroad today is entirely different from the robust holiness of the life of Jesus Christ.

"I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil."

We are to be in the world but not of it; to be disconnected fundamentally, not externally.

We must never allow anything to interfere with the consecration of our spiritual energy.

Consecration is our part, sanctification is God's part; and we have deliberately to determine to be interested only in that in which God is interested.

The way to solve perplexing problems is to ask - Is this the kind of thing in which Jesus Christ is interested, or the kind of thing in which the spirit that is the antipodes of Jesus is interested?

When a man is first born again, he becomes incoherent, there is an amount of unrelated emotion about him, unrelated phases of external things.

In the apostle Paul there was a strong steady coherence underneath, consequently he could let his external life change as it liked and it did not distress him because he was rooted and grounded in God.

Most of us are not spiritually coherent because we are more concerned about being coherent externally.

Paul lived in the basement; the coherent critics live in the upper storey of the external statement of things, and the two do not begin to touch each other.

Paul's consistency was down in the fundamentals. The great basis of his coherence was the agony of God in the Redemption of the world, viz., the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Re-state to yourself what you believe, then do away with as much of it as possible, and get back to the bedrock of the Cross of Christ.

In external history the Cross is an infinitesimal thing; from the Bible point of view it is of more importance than all the empires of the world.

If we get away from brooding on the tragedy of God upon the Cross in our preaching, it produces nothing.

It does not convey the energy of God to man; it may be interesting but it has no power.

But preach the Cross, and the energy of God is let loose.

"It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."

"We preach Christ crucified."

The Gospel of Jesus Christ always forces an issue of will. Do I accept God's verdict on sin in the Cross of Christ? Have I the slightest interest in the death of Jesus? Do I want to be identified with His death, to be killed right out to all interest in sin, in worldliness, in self - to be so identified with Jesus that I am spoilt for everything else but Him?

The great privilege of discipleship is that I can sign on under His Cross, and that means death to sin. Get alone with Jesus and either tell Him that you do not want sin to die out in you; or else tell Him that at all costs you want to be identified with His death. Immediately you transact in confident faith in what Our Lord did on the Cross, a supernatural identification with His death takes place, and you will know with a knowledge that passeth knowledge that your "old man" is crucified with Christ. The proof that your old man is crucified with Christ is the amazing ease with which the life of God in you enables you to obey the voice of Jesus Christ.

Every now and again, Our Lord lets us see what we would be like if it were not for Himself; it is a justification of what He said - "Without Me ye can do nothing." That is why the bedrock of Christianity is personal, passionate devotion to the Lord Jesus. We mistake the ecstasy of our first introduction into the Kingdom for the purpose of God in getting us there; His purpose in getting us there is that we may realize all that identification with Jesus Christ means.

If you want to know the energy of God (i.e., the resurrection life of Jesus) in your mortal flesh, you must brood on the tragedy of God.

Cut yourself off from prying personal interest in your own spiritual symptoms and consider bare-spirited the tragedy of God, and instantly the energy of God will be in you.

"Look unto Me," pay attention to the objective Source and the subjective energy will be there.

We lose power if we do not concentrate on the right thing.

The effect of the Cross is salvation, sanctification, healing, etc., but we are not to preach any of these, we are to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

The proclaiming of Jesus will do its own work.

Concentrate on God's centre in your preaching, and though your crowd may apparently pay no attention, they can never be the same again.

If I talk my own talk, it is of no more importance to you than your talk is to me; but if I talk the truth of God, you will meet it again and so will I.

We have to concentrate on the great point of spiritual energy - the Cross, to keep in contact with that centre where all the power lies, and the energy will be let loose.

In holiness movements and spiritual experience meetings the concentration is apt to be put not on the Cross of Christ, but on the effects of the Cross.

The feebleness of the churches is being criticized today, and the criticism is justified.

One reason for the feebleness is that there has not been this concentration of spiritual energy; we have not brooded enough on the tragedy of Calvary or on the meaning of Redemption.

They were people who were living to themselves. Their hopes, promises, and dreams still controlled them, but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers.

They had asked for a repentant heart and had surrendered themselves with a willingness to pay any price for it, and He sent them sorrow. They had asked for purity, and He sent them sudden anguish. They had asked for meekness, and He had broken their hearts. They had asked to be dead to the world, and He killed all their living hopes. They had asked to be made like Him, so He placed them in the fire “as a refiner and purifier of silver” (Malachi 3:3), until they could reflect His image. They had asked to help carry His cross, yet when He held it out to them, it cut and tore their hands.

They had not fully understood what they asked, but He had taken them at their word and granted them all their requests. They had been unsure whether to follow Him such a long distance or whether to come so close to Him. An awe and a fear was upon them, as Jacob at Bethel when he dreamed of “a stairway . . . reaching to heaven” (Genesis 28:12), or Eliphaz “amid disquieting dreams in the night” (Job 4:13), or as the disciples when “they were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost” (Luke 24:37), not realizing it was Jesus. The disciples were so filled with awe, they felt like asking Him either to depart from them or to hide His glory.

They found it easier to obey than to suffer, to work than to give up, and to carry the cross than to hang upon it. But now they could not turn back, for they had come too close to the unseen cross of the spiritual life, and its virtues had pierced them too deeply. And the Lord was fulfilling this promise of His to them: “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).

Now at last their opportunity had come. Earlier they had only heard of the mystery, but now they felt it. He had fastened His eyes of love on them, as He had on Mary and Peter, so they could only choose to follow Him. And little by little, from time to time, with quick glimmers of light, the mystery of His cross shone upon them. They saw Him “lifted up from the earth,” and gazed on the glory that radiated from the wounds of His holy suffering. As they looked upon Him, they approached Him and were changed into His likeness. His name then shone out through them, for He lived within them. Their life from that moment on was one of inexpressible fellowship solely with Him above. They were willing to live without possessions that others owned and that they could have had, in order to be unlike others so they would be more like Him.

This is the description of all those throughout the ages who “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (Revelation 14:4). If they had chosen selfishly for themselves or if their friends had chosen for them, they would have made other choices. Their lives would have shone more brightly here on earth but less gloriously in His kingdom. Their legacy would have been that of Lot instead of Abraham. And if they had stopped along the way or if God had removed His hand from them, allowing them to stray, what would they have lost? What would they have forfeited at their resurrection?

Yet God strengthened them and protected them, even from themselves. Often, in His mercy He held them up when they otherwise would have slipped and fallen. And even in this life, they knew that all He did was done well. They knew it was good to suffer in this life so they would reign in the one to come; to bear the cross below, to wear a crown above; and to know that not their will but His was done in them and through them.

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence.

God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

I am crucified with Christ.

They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us.

Truly if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.

But now they desire a better country, that is a heavenly.

Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.

The just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.

He which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.—Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.—They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.—Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.

Be ye . . . followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints. Now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light.