What It Costs

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 18, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 32.

MEN forget that, if they would reign with Christ, they must also suffer with Him. They have not understood that whosoever would be a disciple must take up his own cross. True refinement implies the fire of the smelting furnace, as well as the purified result which issues therefrom. Character, like conquest, presupposes conflict, none the less that it has come by the way of faith. Men easily forget that Egypt and the desert came before the Promised Land. They need always to be reminded that thorns composed the Messiah’s first visible crown, and that the sign of God’s choice, in men’s sight, is as likely to be pains and perils as it is any earthly pleasures. Christians must bear about in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus, as evidence that they belong to the elect race, the royal family of God. Refinement must in some sense have been an experience before it can become a possession. Faith implies active fellowship with a living Redeemer, and not merely passive assent to a work performed. The culture that comes from God is a gift which is costly to the receiver as well as the giver. No man can surely have faith in Christ and Him crucified who does not in his refinement show signs of the cross.—Sunday School Times.