ALL that God is doing in the world in any way He is doing by dead people. God uses us in proportion as we are dead,—dead to self, dead to selfish pleasure, dead to the world, dead to human praise or blame, dead to personal interest,—dead to everything but God, who dwells within, giving life. “It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me,” so that self is dead beyond the hope of a resurrection, and Christ liveth thru all the powers of my being and absolutely controls those powers for His own purposes. “For me to live is Christ.” Blessed deadness! Glorious living! Happy freedom! “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.” Then I do not care for the world; its pleasures have no power to entice me, its riches I count but dross, its applause is a hollow mockery, its society, its ease, its praises, I have not the faintest desire to enjoy, its persecutions have no power to swerve me from my purpose. “The world is crucified unto me,” it has no use for me, it had no use for my Master; it despised Him, it killed Him; it despises me, it may kill me. Dead! Dead to everything but God, to be used by Him as He wills.
Let no man think that this death to self is easily secured. It is the most difficult part of a satisfactory religious experience. Self dies hard. Crucifixion means rough handling, humiliation hard to endure; it means solitude and agony, the assaults of demons and men; it means the piercing spike and the darkening heavens; but, thank God, it also means resurrection, triumph, and God’s glory. “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”