DYING TO SELF

DYING TO SELF
EXPERIENCING A LIFE OF LOVE BY FAITH
BY WILLIAM LAW
Edited by Robert Fitts
 
DYING TO SELF
When your good is evil spoken of
When your wishes are often crossed
Your advise disregarded, your opinions ridiculed
And you refuse to let anger rise in your heart or to defend yourself
But take it all in patient, loving silence
That is dying to self.
 
When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder
Any irregularity, any lack of punctuality or any annoyance
When you stand face to face with waste
With silly extravagance or with spiritual insensibility
And endure it as Jesus did
That is dying to self.
 
When you are content with any food, any provision,
Any climate, any culture any clothing, any questioning, any interruption
When you have done the will of God to the best of your knowledge
Then find yourself misunderstood, maligned, set aside, rejected, beaten
Yet at the midnight hour in the dark prison cell you sing praise to God
That is dying to self.
 
When you never care to refer to yourself
Or defend your own opinions
When you never point out your own good works
Or desire men's commendation
When you can truely love to be unknown yet willing to be well known
That is dying to self.
 
When you see your brother prosper and have his needs all met
And can honestly rejoice with him without envy or perplexity
While your own needs are far greater and in more desperate situation
When you receive reproof and correction
from one of less experience than yourself
And can humbly submit, finding within you no rebellion,
retaliation, self-sympathy, self defense, self vindication,
self justification, resentment, bitterness or unforgiveness
That is dying to self.
 
Author Unknown
 
PREFACE
by Andrew Murray
 
In Dying To Self, a section from his larger work, THE SPIRIT OF LOVE, Law's primary thoughts are these:
The ordinary Christian life is that of a student in training. Under the teaching of scripture, the mind and heart have to be educated and disciplined and the will trained and stirred to seek after a life in which the spirit of love actually fills and rules the soul.
Such a life is possible, but can be received only by the operation of God in which our Lord, as the Lamb of God, reveals himself in the heart and takes full possession. The one real hindrance to this life of the Spirit of Love within us is the power of self that poisons our whole nature.
The chief object of our training is to bring us to the place where we see how utterly helpless we are to work a deliverance from the power of this evil self. The only way to be delivered is through a true and entire death to self. The great secret of this death to self is to be found in a simple and helpless turning from self to God.
This dying to self is the very perfection of faith in Christ as the Lamb of God. At first it does not appear how this can bring such a wonderful deliverance from self or lead to Christ's rising up in our inner man with the light of heaven and the birth of the Spirit of Love. But he goes on to show us how in the humility of the Lamb of God lay the secret of the work He did, and the salvation He gives. He shows us that totally yielding to God in humility, meekness, patience, and resignation is the very perfection of faith in Christ and the one and only condition of God's doing His work in us. Before Law is through we are compelled to acknowledge that here is indeed the place of blessing.
The points that Law stresses are these:
¥ The low state of the spiritual life of the average believer.
¥ The cause of all failure in the Christian life comes from self confidence.
¥ The need of a total surrender of the whole being to the operation of God in our hearts and lives.
¥ The call to turn to Christ in faith as the only deliverance from the power of self.
¥ The certainty of a better life for all who will in self despair trust Christ for it.
¥ The heavenly joy of a life in which the Spirit of Love fills the heart.
What is so helpful is the way which Law shows how humility and utter self-despair with resignation to God's mighty working in simple faith, is the infallible way to be delivered from self and have the Spirit of Love fill the heart.
I pray that the blessing and help his teaching has been to me may be shared by many, and that this little book may be used of God to open up the exceeding riches of His grace in Christ.
Because God's love is the origin of all love, it can be nothing in us but what it is in God, a will to all goodness toward others at all times and on all occasions. And this Spirit of Love is not really yours till it is the spirit of your own life; till you live freely, willingly, and universally according to it. The Spirit of Love can do nothing but love wherever it is and whatever is done to it because it is God Himself in the soul of man.
All sin is nothing but the spirit of man turned away from this love to some form of self seeking. It is this self that crucified Christ, and from this self man must be purified. And there is no way of being thus purified but by dying to self and having the Spirit of Love born in us. This is where we begin to understand the absolute necessity of the teaching on the cross, dying to self, as the only way to experience the life of God within.
A perpetual operation of the Spirit of God within us is absolutely necessary because holiness is not an occasional thing that begins and ends or is only for a certain time and place. It is always alive in us through our thoughts, our wills, our desires, and our affections. If these are to be always holy and good, then the Holy and good Spirit of God must be always operating as a principle of life within us.
The kingdom of heaven must be within us or it can never belong to us. Goodness, godliness, and holiness can only be ours as thinking, willing and desiring are ours by being in us as a power from heaven in the birth and growth of our own inward life.
My one great need then is to be delivered from the power of self. And the work of Christ as our Redeemer is just this. He alone can take from our earthly life of flesh and blood this evil power of self. All I have to do or can do is co-operate with God in resisting and renouncing the evil attitudes and workings of my own evil nature. The bad that we do is only as we resist the Spirit of God within us and the good that we do is only as we conform to the of God within us. Thus our salvation from the evil power of self consists wholly and completely in the life of Jesus operating in us.
This little book, DYING TO SELF, is a dialog between Barnabas and two of his disciples. We'll call them Mark and John. The book is divided into four parts:
Part One- the difference between being impressed by a truth and actually possessing it.
Part Two- the difference between the life of God and the life of self apart from God.
Part Three- the simple but wonderful secret of dying to self as the only way to have the life of God restored in man.
Part Four-the actual enjoyment of this blessing.
A. Murray Wellington
July 11, 1898
 
INTRODUCTION
William Law did not approach the subject of dying to self as a teaching from the New Testament, but rather from the standpoint of reason, with scriptural knowledge as a basis. What he said in the following dialog was definitely biblical, but was not an explanation of the scriptures themselves.
For some, it will be helpful to look at the New Testament to see what is said there about dying to self. is there such a walk with God mentioned in the words of Jesus or the apostles? The basis for faith is the promises of God. Dwight Moody used to say, "God said! I believe it! And that settles it!" But has God said anything specifically about dying to self in the pages of the Bible, or is this just a theological teaching with no foundation in the written word?
Praise God for the clear logic and the convincing arguments that William Law brings to this subject! They will be sufficient for many to enter into this life of victory and pure love. Others will need both what he teaches as well as the clear teaching from the scriptures as a basis for their faith.
How firm a foundation you saints of the Lord
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He has said
You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?
BAPTIZED INTO DEATH
The apostle Paul speaks of dying to self in Romans six: "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? . . . For we know that our old self was crucified with him . . . '
Paul is declaring a truth that applies to all believers whether they are aware of it or not, for he says, "Or don't you know . . ." In other words, Paul is saying that if they had known what it really meant to be baptized into the death of Jesus, it would have resulted in a life of victory over sin. To be baptized into means to be identified with and to be identified with means God sees you the same as he sees the person from whom you take your identity.
For me to be baptized into the death of Jesus means that His death is credited to my account. When Jesus died, I died. I died, not only to the penalty of sin; I died to sin itself and to self. All that the law of God required of me was fully met in the death of Jesus and in addition to that the death of the old man (the sin nature) was accomplished for me at the cross as well.
"Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." The King James version says, "Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." We must believe that the work is already done. We have already been declared dead by the Father, so it is safe for me to declare this to be true of myself. And as I do this, God makes my reckoning a reality. this is how faith works. Confess it with your mouth and believe it in your heart and you shall be saved.
YOU DIED
In his letter to the Colossians, as he did in all his letters, Paul admonishes them to live holy and godly lives based on the reality of their full identification with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. He says, "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, not on earthly things. For your died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God." It is not that we have to do something more in order to die to self; we are already declared to be dead!
Because of our full identification with the death of Jesus, we have nothing else to do but to look to Jesus in faith that the "old man" is dead because we have been pronounced dead by none other than the Lord Himself in his Word! WE DIED WITH HIM WHEN HE DIED! IT IS FINISHED! HE FINISHED IT FOR US! There is no stronger basis for dying to self than the above passage, but there are others just as strong.
I HAVE BEEN CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST
Perhaps the most familiar words of Paul on dying to self are Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing."
Paul is not speaking of himself as one who had attained to the state of being crucified as if it were an accomplishment through strenuous effort over a long period of time. He was speaking of his position in Christ that he inherited as a gift of the pure grace of God the moment he was born again! If it had been otherwise, he would not have gone into such detail to clarify to his readers that being crucified with Christ did not come to him as a process of obeying certain rules and lows and requirements in order to enter into it, but rather that it came by faith in the Son of God.
Co-crucifixion with Christ is really ours in inheritance even before we acknowledge or accept it, but it is only ours in experience as it begins to work a transformation in us after we see it, receive it, embrace it, confess it, and live our lives in the light of it. All things in the Kingdom of God are purchased with one currency and one alone, and that currency is FAITH!
ONE DIED FOR ALL AND THEREFORE ALL DIED
Consider the following statement in four translations:
"For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died." (II Cor. 5:14) NIV
"For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died." II Cor. 5:14) ASV
"Because the love of Christ constrains us, for this is our thinking: that if one died for all, then all died." (II Cor. 5:14) Spanish translation
The love of Christ fills our lives because we have believed and received by faith the message that when Christ died for us all, in the books of God, we were all declared to be dead. (II Cor. 5:14) free translation
The word we must understand in order to comprehend the words in the passage above is "imputation". The word "impute" means to charge or credit someone's bank account. It is a book keeping term. If someone put ten thousand dollars into my bank account without my knowledge it would never be of any benefit to me, but when it comes to my attention and I begin to write checks on it, that is the day it becomes a reality in my life. All things in the kingdom of God work by grace through faith. God gives it to us by grace in the form of a promise. We reach out and take it by faith and at that moment we begin to enjoy it. The Word of God gives us a firm foundation for William Law's teaching on dying to self. It confirms the premise that it is not a matter of killing self, as if it is an achievement after a hard-fought battle, or of starving self to death, as if we were capable of bringing self to the place of death by our efforts. It is simply a matter of taking God at his word and entering into a life of love by grace through faith.
Robert Fitts, October, 1999, Kona, Hawaii
PART ONE
The difference between admiring and possessing (Barnabas, the teacher, is concluding his lengthy teaching on perfect love with his disciples, Mark and John.)
Barnabas - Before you leave, Mark and John, I need a little more time with you to share on the practical part of the Spirit of Love so that doctrine and practice may go hand in hand. It is one thing to know a truth and another thing to put it into practice and live in the reality of it.
Mark- Whatever you say, but I don't think this teaching on the Spirit of Love could possibly have any more power over me than it has already. It has so gotten possession of my heart that everything else is under its dominion. I can do nothing else but love. I have no taste for anything else.
Barnabas- I know you are speaking sincerely, but I am also convinced that you are not aware of your true experience in relation to the Spirit of Love. You are as yet only charmed with the sight, or rather the sound of it; it's real birth is yet unfelt and unfound in you. You are delighted with the teaching itself but you have forgotten that the birth of the Spirit of Love in the inner man can only come forth in its proper time and place and from its proper causes.
Nothing that is a birth can be brought about by a simple mental or emotional experience such as reasoning or feeling. You may love it as much as you please or think it the most charming thing in the world; you may consider everything but dross and dung in comparison to it and yet have no more of its birth in you than the blind man has of light. He may have the most charming notion of what light is like but is still blind. It is the same in the realm of the spirit. The Spirit of Love can only be found where it rises up from within as the birth of a baby. The Spirit of Love and the Price of its Possession
Mark - But if I have come no farther than this, what good has all your teaching on the Spirit of Love done in me? I have fully believed and received all that you have shared!
Barnabas - You are confusing two things which are totally different. You make no distinction between the teaching that sets forth the nature, and the necessity of the Spirit of Love and the Spirit of Love itself. They are two different things. You may be quite full of the teaching on love and still be quite empty of love itself. I have said everything that I could to show you the truth, excellence, and necessity of the Spirit of Love because it is all important for you to be well established in this teaching. But all that I have said is only to encourage you to buy it at its own price. For if you think that you have it because you are so highly pleased with that which you have heard, you only embrace the shadow and not the substance.
Mark - What is the price that I must give for it?
Barnabas - You must give up all confidence in your own ability to live a life pleasing to God and accept the fact that it cannot be done by human effort.
Mark - Proceed as you please to lay open all my defects concerning the Spirit of Love for I do want to be set right in a matter so important as this.
John - Let me first observe, Barnabas, that I am afraid the matter is much worse with me than it is with Mark. This teaching seems to fill all my heart and yet I seem to have no strength to put it into practice in my daily life. I find myself as much under the power of the old nature as I was before I heard it.
Two Ways to Seek Goodness
Barnabas - Every kind of virtue and goodness may be brought into us in two different ways. They may be taught us outwardly by men, by rules and precepts, or they may be inwardly born in us as the genuine birth of our own renewed spirit. As we learn them only from men, by rules and instruction, we are at best only changed in our outward behavior. Our heart is left in its natural state, unchanged. Our passions and lusts are only put under a forced restraint which will occasionally break forth in spite of the laws and rules we impose against them. This way of learning and attaining goodness, though imperfect, is absolutely necessary and must have its time and work in us; yet it is only for a time, just as the law was our schoolmaster to lead us to Christ.
We are first babes in understanding as well as in strength before we become men. But all outward instruction, whether it come to us from good men or from the Bible itself can make nothing perfect, and yet is it a necessary step in bringing us to perfection. The true perfection and value of the written Word of God is set forth by Paul to Timothy: "From a child (he says) you have known the Scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation, which comes through faith in Christ Jesus." All scriptures have no other good or benefit in them except as they lead us to a salvation that is not to found in themselves, but in Christ Jesus. Their purpose is only to teach us where to seek and to find the fountain and source of all light and knowledge.
Of the prophets he said the same in different words: "And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the Morning Star arises in your hearts."
What was said of the Old Testament scriptures must also be said of the New Testament; it is our tutor to lead us to Christ. It is a light like that of prophecy, to which we are to take great heed until Christ, as the dawning of the day, or The Morning Star, arises in our hearts.
No instruction that comes in the form of words can do more for us than sounds and words can do. They can only direct us to something that is better than themselves that can be the true light, life, spirit, and power of holiness in us.
Mark - I cannot deny what you say and yet it seems to me that you are minimizing the importance of the Scriptures.
Barnabas - Would you rather I say that the written Word of God is that Word which was with God, which was God, by whom all things were made; that Word of God which was made flesh for the redemption of the world; that Word of God of which we must be born again; that Word which lights every man who comes into the world? Would you have me say that all this is to be understood as the written Word of God? Not so! Jesus alone is that Word of God that can be the light, life, and salvation of fallen man.
Indeed, how is it possible to more highly exalt the written Word than by receiving it as a true, outward, verbal direction to the only true light and salvation of man, Jesus ? Suppose you had been a true disciple of John the Baptist, whose only calling was to prepare the way to Christ; how could you have a more magnified ministry than by going from his teaching to be taught by Christ, to whom he directed you? John was indeed a burning and shining light and so are the holy scriptures; but he was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. Jesus was the true light which lights every man who comes into the world.
How untrue it would be to say that you had undervalued the work and the character of John the Baptist because he was not received as the light itself, but only a true witness of that light and a guide to it. Now if you can show me, Mark, that the written Word in the Bible can have any higher function or power than such a ministerial one as John the Baptist had, I am ready to hear you.
Mark - I do not see how I could do that.
The Birth of Goodness in the Inner Man
Barnabas - Then you should be fully convinced that there are two ways of attaining knowledge, goodness and virtue: one by the ministry of outward, verbal instruction and the other by an inward birth of divine light, goodness and virtue in our own renewed spirit. The sole purpose of the outward is to lead us to the inward, and is of no benefit to us except as it carries us farther than itself into the reality of the light, the Word, and the Spirit of God, just as John the Baptist would have been of no benefit to his disciples unless he had guided them from himself to Christ.
I am afraid that you both are still under this outward teaching only and that your acts of goodness are only done under obedience to rules, principles, precepts and doctrines and are not the fruit of a new-born spirit within you. But until you are renewed in the spirit of your minds, your virtues are only taught practices grafted upon a corrupt foundation. Everything you do will be a mixture of good and bad; your humility will awaken your pride, your charity will nourish your self love, and as your prayers increase, so will your opinion of your own goodness.
Until the heart is purified to the very bottom and has felt the ax at the root of its evil, (which cannot be done by outward instruction) everything that proceeds from it partakes of its own impurity and corruption.
It is clear that John is still under the law, or outward instruction. For in spite of his progress in the teaching on love he finds all the passions of his corrupt nature still alive in him and himself only changed in thoughts and opinions.
The same may be true of you, Mark. You consider yourself to be wholly possessed by the Spirit of Love simply because you have embraced it with open arms and think of nothing but living under the power of it. But if the Spirit of Love were truly alive in you, you would account for its birth and power in you in quite another manner. You would have known the price you paid for it and how many deaths you had suffered before the Spirit of Love came to life in you.
Mark - Your censure of us seems too severe to me. I would hope that you at least consider us to be born-again believers under something more than mere outward instruction. You know very well that it is a principle with both of us to expect all our goodness from the Spirit of God dwelling and working in us. We live in faith and hope of His divine operation.
Barnabas - Mark, I am not censuring you or accusing you. I really believe you are in a good place spiritually! It is good for John to feel that his natural man is not yet subdued. It is also good that you are delighted with the teaching on love. By these means both of you have been prepared for further advancement. Both of you thought you had as much of the Spirit of Love as you could have and therefore John wondered why he had no more benefit from it; and you wondered why I should desire to lead you further into it. Therefore I have desired this time with you to go over the practical matters of the Spirit so that neither of you will lose the benefit of what you have learned.
The Full Birth of the Spirit of Love
Mark - Please proceed. With all our heart we desire to have the truth and purity of this divine love brought forth in us and to be totally governed by it. I've come to the place where nothing holds any attraction for me except as it calls forth that spirit which does all that it does for God and man under the one law of love. Whatever you can say to me that will increase the power, expose the defects, or remove the obstacles to divine love in my soul, I will welcome.
Barnabas - Let me share with you the nature and power of this love in the soul of man. This divine love is perfect peace and joy; it is a sweet freedom from all anxiety; it is complete contentment and happiness in the midst of any and all circumstances and makes everything rejoice in itself. Love is the Christ of God; wherever it comes, it leads to true blessing and happiness. It comes as the restorer of every lost perfection, as a redeemer from all evil, a fulfiller of all righteousness, and a peace of God that is beyond our understanding.
Where this Spirit of Love reigns nothing is uneasy, unsatisfied or restless. Every hunger is fulfilled and all complaining, murmuring, accusing, and striving are suppressed and overcome.
The Spirit of Love cannot be disappointed, cannot complain, accuse, resent, or murmur because divine love desires nothing but itself; it is its own good, its own fulfillment, it has all when it has itself, because love is God and he who dwells in God dwells in love.
Are You Thus Blessed?
Barnabas - Tell me now, Mark, are you experiencing the fullness of the Spirit of Love?
Mark - Do you want me to tell you that I am an angel without the infirmities of flesh and blood?
Barnabas - No, but I would ask you to judge for yourself whether or not you are experiencing this love, not by any effort of your own but rather by the heavenly disposition that I have described to you. For to the extent that you are freed from all anxieties, trouble, and complainings, to that extent is the Spirit of Love come to life in you.
Divine love is a new life and a new nature. It introduces you into a new world; it puts an end to your former opinions, notions, and dispositions; it opens new emotions within you and makes you see things in a different light. That which was low is now high; and the high is now low; that which was wisdom is now foolishness, and foolishness is now wisdom; it makes prosperity and adversity, praise and censure to be equally nothing.
 
PART TWO
God is Light and Self is Darkness
John - I am fully convinced of what you say by my own uneasiness at finding that my natural tendencies are not yet overcome by this Spirit of Love. Evidently this uneasiness is aroused by the dawning of this divine love in me making just demands to be the one and only light, breath, and power of my life and to have all that is within me overcome and governed by it. I must either silence this small voice of newly risen love in me or have no rest from self condemnation till my whole nature is brought into subjection to it.
Barnabas - You are absolutely right, John, and this brings us to the one great practical point on which all our proficiency in the Spirit of Love depends, namely, that all that we are and all that we have from human nature must be given up, denied, and resisted if the full maturity of divine love is to be brought forth in us. We must realize that all that we are by nature is in full opposition to this divine love. Death to self is its only cure, and nothing else can make it subservient to good. Darkness cannot be altered or transformed into light but can only be subservient to the light by being lost in it and swallowed up by it.
Whatever is delightful, sublime, and glorious in spirits, minds or bodies, either in heaven or on earth is from the power of supernatural light, opening its endless wonders in them. Hell is full of misery because it has no communication with this light. Hell is the absence of this light.
Darkness and light are the two natures that are in every man and they do all that is done in him. The scriptures make only the one division: the works of darkness are sin and they who walk in the light are the children of God. Therefore light and darkness do everything that is done in man whether good or evil. Listen to what the Bible says: "For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts." "The god of this world has blinded the minds of them who believe not, that the light should not dawn upon them." "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all." "In Him was life and the life was the light of men." "He is the true light and He gives light to every man who comes into the world."
God can only be known as His light shines through and from those on whom He causes it to rest. The light of the glory of God is seen in the face of Jesus Christ and also in the faces and in the lives of His people.
The Power of Darkness
John - My heart is drawn to know and experience the power of the light as God would cause it to rest in its fullness upon me, but what is this darkness in itself and where is it?
Barnabas - The powers of darkness are the workings of nature or self, for nature, darkness, and self are three different expressions of the same thing. Every evil, wrathful, impure, thought, attitude, passion, or imagination that ever stirred within you; every misery, discontent, distress, rage, or torment that ever plagued the life of man, these are the powers or workings of darkness, nature, or self. Nothing is evil or wicked or tormenting but that which nature or self does.
John - But how can such a nature be brought forth by a God who is all goodness?
Barnabas - Nature, as it comes from God, could never have any quality of darkness in it if it had not lost that state of light in which it came forth from God. Evil, strife and self-will could never have had a place in all the universe if it had continued in the state in which it came forth from God. All that is called nature, darkness of self can be fully possessed by evil or fully possessed and motivated by good.
When we turn from God to self, we act unnaturally, we turn from all that makes nature to be good and find nature only as it is in itself . . . without God. It is then that nature or self is all evil and darkness. Nothing is to be found in it but the workings of every kind of evil, baseness, misery, torment and the utmost enmity to God and all goodness.
John - You have satisfied my question about the nature of self. I shall never forget it or ever have any doubt of its truth. I also see the truth of what you said about the nature and power of divine love. It is indeed perfect peace and joy, a freedom from all anxiety, making it possible to rejoice in all things. It is the Christ of God, and wherever it comes it brings blessing and happiness; it restores every lost perfection; it redeems from all evil; it fulfills all righteousness and brings a peace that passes all understanding.
I am a thousand times more thirsty now for the Spirit of Love. I am willing to sell all and buy it; its blessing is so great and the lack of it such a dreadful state that I am even afraid to lay down in my bed till every working power of my soul is fully given up to it and wholly possessed and governed by it.
 
PART THREE
Dying to Self to Live to God
Death to Self is Not by our Own Effort
John - I could almost say that you have shown me more than enough of this monster self, but tell me, what must I do to be saved from the mouth of this lion, for he is the depth of all subtlety, the Satan that deceives the whole world. He can hide himself under all forms of goodness. He can watch and fast, write and instruct, pray much and preach long, give to the poor, visit the sick, and yet often get more life and strength and gain a stronger position in these forms of virtue than he has in the vilest of sinners. Prescribe to me whatever you please. All rules, methods, and practices will be welcome if you judge them to be necessary in this matter.
Barnabas - There is no need of a number of practices or methods in this matter. For to die to self, or to come from under its power, cannot be done by any active resistance we can make to it by the powers of nature. For nature can no more overcome or suppress itself than wrath can heal wrath. So long as self acts, nothing but natural works are brought forth, and therefore the more labor of this kind, the more the self life is fed and strengthened with its own food.
But the one true way of dying to self is most simple and plain. There is no need of arts or methods; no cells, monasteries, or pilgrimages; it is equally accessible to everybody; it is always at hand; it meets you in everything; and is never without success.
If you ask what this one true, simple, plain, immediate, and unerring way is, it is the way of a patient, meek, humble resignation to God This is the way to die to self; it is nowhere else but in this state of heart.
John - The excellency and perfection of these virtues I readily acknowledge; but how will this prove the way of overcoming self to be so simple, plain, immediate, and unerring as you say? Is it not the teaching of almost all men and all books, and confirmed by our own sad experience, that a great deal of time, and effort and a variety of practices and methods are necessary, to the attainment of any one of these virtues?
Barnabas - When Christ was upon the earth, was there anything more simple, plain, immediate, unerring than the way to Him? Did scribes, Pharisees, publicans, and sinners need any length of time or exercise of rules and methods before they could have admission to Him or have the benefit of faith in Him?
John - I don't understand why you ask the question. How can it relate to the matter before us?
Barnabas - It not only relates to, but is the very heart of the matter. I refer you to a patient, meek, humble resignation to God as the one simple, plain, immediate, and unerring way of dying to self, I refer you to Christ Jesus the Lord. You can as easily and immediately, without art or method, by the mere turning to the Christ within you in simple faith, have all the benefit of these virtues, as publicans and sinners by their turning to Christ could be helped and saved by him when he walked among men.
John - You mean that simply by turning to Christ within is as certain and immediate a way of my being possessed and blessed by these virtues as when sinners turn to Christ to be helped and saved by Him?
Barnabas - Yes, I would have you strictly to believe this! And also to believe that the reasons why you are vainly seeking and never attaining these virtues is because you seek them in the wrong way; in a multitude of human rules, methods, and contrivances, and not in the simplicity of faith in which they who came to Christ immediately obtained that which they asked of Him.
"Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." How short and simple and certain a way to peace and comfort from the misery and burden of sin! So what about all the rules and methods and round about ways to be delivered from the power of sin, and to find the redeeming power and virtue of Christ? Will you say that turning to Christ in faith was once indeed the way for men to enter into life and be delivered from the power of their sins, but that all this ended when Pilate nailed Jesus to the cross?
How strange to suppose that Christ, after having finished His great work, overcome death, ascended into heaven, with all power in heaven and on earth, has become less a savior than He was before! How could He bring less help to those who by faith turn to Him now than when He was clothed with the infirmity of our flesh and blood upon earth? Does He have less power after He has conquered than while He was only resisting and fighting with our enemies? Or does He have less good will to assist His Church, His own body, now that He is in heaven than He had to assist publicans and sinners before He was crucified? And yet this must be the case if our simple turning to Him in faith is not as sure a way of obtaining immediate assistance from Him now as when He was upon earth.
When Christ was upon earth nothing was more simple, plain, immediate, and certain than the way of coming to Him. There was no length of time, no rules or methods to be observed; all who came in the simplicity of a faith that knew it could not help itself, and turned from itself to Him, found immediate access and relief. And now that Christ is in heaven and has taken His place on the throne of grace, there has been no change in the way to come to Him; now that we cannot see Him, more than ever the way to Him and to be helped by Him is a way of faith. Faith in Him can bring an immediate and effectual deliverance from self.
He is able to deliver them who trust in Him from the dominion of self. His exaltation to the throne calls us to a confidence and assurance such as those who were with Him never could have had. Let your heart be strengthened with the faith that He who is mighty to save can save you from the dominion of self, and that faith in Him is the one simple, only and immediate way to obtain this deliverance.
But do not be mistaken as to how this deliverance comes. Many think that it comes by the death and entire removal of self. This is not the way. The death of self is something very different from the death to self which God's word holds out to you. When Jesus died to sin, He did not slay sin in the sense of annihilating it. Sin is still living and reigning in all who submit to it. He died to it so that it had no more power to tempt or persecute Him. You are partakers of His death to sin, and to self, in which sin works; and the healing he now gives is the power of His death to sin and His living unto God in such a way that He frees you from the dominion of self. Now you are living in Him and His life is released to flow out through you.
And now, you may have accepted this gift of deliverance but still feel the need to have opened up to you what it implies and how you can fully enjoy it. Or you may want more insight as to how you can more fully possess this blessing. The important thing is to turn at once, even this moment, to the Christ who dwells within you as the one and only most certain deliverer from the power of self and sin.
The Way of Dying to Self is the Very Perfection of Faith
John - It seems to me that you have stepped aside from the point. The question was not concerning turning to Christ in faith but whether my turning in faith and desire to patience, meekness, humility, and resignation to God would bring about the release and change as fully for me now as faith in Christ did for those who were his followers upon earth.
Barnabas - As a matter of fact, I have stuck closely to the point before us. Let's suppose I have given you a form of prayer in these words; "O Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world . . . " or, "O Bread that comes down from heaven . . . " Would you say that this was not a prayer to Christ because it did not call Him Jesus or the Son of God?
John - Yes, this is a prayer to Jesus, the Son of the living God! Who else but He is the Lamb of God and the bread that came down from heaven?
Barnabas - Well answered, my friend. When I exhort you to give up yourself in faith and hope to patience, meekness, humility, and surrender to God, I am pointing you directly to faith and hope in Jesus, the Lamb of God who is the perfection of patience, meekness, humility, and surrender to God!
Would you not say that a faith that makes you hunger and thirst for these virtues is a faith that makes you desire to be delivered from self by Jesus, the Lamb of God? So, therefore, every sincere desire, every inward inclination of your heart that presses after these virtues, and longs to be governed by them, is an immediate, direct appeal to Jesus, is worshiping and falling down before Him, is giving up yourself to Him, and is in itself the very perfection of faith in Him.
Hear the words of Christ Himself: "learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart; and you shall find rest unto your souls." It is clear that to desire patience, meekness, humility, and surrender to God is the same thing as to learn of Christ, or to have faith in Him. This is the one simple, short, and infallible way to overcome or be delivered from all the evil and burden of self expresses in these words, "And you shall find rest unto your souls."
This simple tendency or inclination of your heart to sink down into patience, meekness, humility, and surrender to God is truly dying to self. It is leaving all that you have to follow and be with Christ. It is your highest act of faith in Him. It is the most ardent and earnest declaration of your cleaving to Him with all your heart and seeking for no other salvation but from Him and in Him.
Therefore all the goodness, pardon and deliverance from sin that ever happened to anyone by looking to Christ is sure to be had from this state of heart which stands continually turned to Him in a desire to be governed by His spirit of patience, meekness, humility, and surrender to God.
O, John, if I could only help you to see what treasure there is in this state of heart, you would desire it with more eagerness than the thirsty deer desires the water-brooks. You would think of nothing, desire nothing but to constantly live in it. It is security from all evil and from all delusion. There is no problem or trial or temptation inside of you or in your circumstances that does not have its full remedy in this inward disposition of your heart. You have no questions to ask, no new way that you need to inquire after, for while you shut up yourself to a patient, meek, humble surrender to God, you are in the very arms of Christ, your whole heart is His dwelling place. He lives and works in you as certainly as He lived in and governed that body and soul which He took from the Virgin Mary.
Follow This Christ!
Learn what you will from men or from books, but without this you are only a poor wanderer in a barren wilderness. But where these virtues are found, there Christ sits enthroned in his own kingdom. From morning to night let this be the Christ that you follow. Then you will escape all the religious delusions that are in the world and all the delusions of your own heart.
When you seek patience, meekness, humility, and surrender to God you are truly coming to God through Christ. And when these virtues live and abide in you as the spirit and aim of your life, then Christ is in you and the life that you then lead is not yours but Christ's who lives in you.
This is what it means to follow Christ with all your power. You cannot make more haste after Him; you can have no other way of walking as He walked; no other way of being like Him, but by wholly giving up yourself to that which He was. For He was patience, meekness, humility, and total abandonment to the will of God.
Despairing of Self
Barnabas - To be angry at our own anger, to be ashamed of our own pride, and strongly resolve not to be weak, is only the beginning again of human endeavor; and that is rather the life of self than death to self. There is no help until we come to a total despair of all human help.
When a man is brought to such a full conviction as to have no more hope from all human means than he hopes to see with his hands or hear with his feet, then it is that he is truly prepared to die to self; that is, to give up all thoughts of having or doing anything that is good in any other way but that of presenting a meek, humble, patient, surrender of himself to God.
All that we do before this is done in ignorance and is full of weakness and impurity. Let our zeal be ever so wonderful, yet if it begins sooner, or proceeds farther, or to any other matter or in any other way than as it is led and guided by this conviction, it is full of delusion. No repentance, however long or laborious, has any value till it falls into this state. For God must do all, or all is nothing. But God cannot do all till all is expected of Him. And all is not expected from Him till, by a despair of every human help, we have no hope, or trust, or longing after anything but a patient, meek, humble, and total surrender to God.
The State of the Heart
And now, my dear friends, I have brought you to the very place for which I desired this days conversation which was to set your feet upon sure ground with regard to the Spirit of Love. For all the different matters we have discussed have been only a variety of proofs that the Spirit of divine love can have no possibility of birth in any man till he wills and chooses to be dead to self in a patient, meek, humble surrender to God.
It is from this state of heart also that the spirit of prayer is born which is the desire of the soul turned to God. Be steadfast in this! Let nothing else enter your mind; have no other plan but to nourish and keep up this state of heart. Then your house is built upon a rock; the light of heaven and the love of God will begin their work in you, will bless and sanctify every power of your being. You will be in a readiness for every kind of virtue and good work, and will know what it is to be led by the Spirit of God.
John - I am receiving all you are saying and I am excited! But, suppose I should find myself so overcome with my own darkness and selfish attitudes that I am not able to sink from them into a true consciousness of this full surrender to God? What must I do then?
Barnabas - You are then at the very time and place of practicing it with the greatest advantage to yourself. For though this patient, meek surrender is to be exercised with regard to all outward things, it mainly deals with our inward disposition, such as our troubles, perplexities, weaknesses, doubts, fears, and failures. To stand firmly committed to a patient, meek, humble, surrender to God when your own impatience, anger, pride, and self will attack you is a higher and more beneficial performance of this duty than when you are attacked by the pride or anger of other people.
I use the words, "stand firmly committed" because this is our true performance of this duty at the time of the test. You may have no inward assurance that you are performing it well, but if you seek help in no other way, but wholly give yourself to be helped by the mercy of God, then, no matter what the state of your heart may be, you will have the full benefit of God's mercy and grace.
The greater the perplexity of your distress the nearer you are to the greatest and best relief, provided you have the faith to expect it all from God. For nothing brings you so near to divine relief as the extremity of distress.
The Divine Operation
Barnabas - God has no greater name than "the helper of all who look to Him for help." Nothing can hinder your finding this goodness of God and every other gift and grace that you need. Nothing can hinder or delay it except your turning away from the only fountain of living water to some cracked cistern of your own making, to some other method , expecting a deliverance through some other means than that which is only to be had from worshiping the Father in spirit and truth. And this is what you are doing when you trust wholly in the operation of God within you. We have neither more nor less of this divine operation within us because of this or that outward form or discipline. It is strictly to the degree that our faith and hope are fixed upon God alone.
Our Heart The Way To God
Barnabas - The way to God is through our heart. And even our heart cannot find Him except by its faith in Him; a faith that looks only to God to meet every need at all times and in all circumstances. This is the very essence of our salvation. It is in the heart of man where true religion is found; a salvation that makes a true and full offering of our whole being to God's work within us. This is the true confession that we are worshiping our Lord Jesus Christ who is the only true God. Your foundation stands sure while you look to Him for your deliverance and to no other. As you look to Him, the Father is working life in your soul by His Word and by His Spirit.
PART FOUR
The Lamb of God Breathing His Nature Into Us
John - I can never thank you enough, Barnabas, for this good teaching! Now I know how to find full relief in this humble, meek, patient, surrender of my self to God. As you said, it is a remedy that is always at hand, equally practicable at all times and never in greater reality than when my own temper is making war against it in my own heart.
You have surely carried your point with me that the God of patience, meekness, and love is the one God of my heart. It is now the whole desire of my soul to seek for all my salvation in and through the merits and mediation of the meek, humble, patient, resigned, suffering Lamb of God who alone has the power to bring forth the birth of these heavenly virtues in my soul.
He is the bread of God that came down from heaven. Jesus is the eternal love and meekness that left the bosom of the Father to be himself the resurrection of meekness and love in all the darkened, angry souls of fallen men. What a comfort to know that this Lamb of God who is the glory of heaven and the joy of angels, is as near to us, as truly in the midst of us, as He is in the midst of heaven! And that not a thought, look, or desire of our heart that presses toward Him, longing to catch one small spark of His heavenly nature, but will as surely find Him, touch Him, and draw virtue from Him as the woman who was healed by touching the hem of His garment!
This teaching makes me feel so ashamed of all my natural outbursts. Every whisper of my soul that stirs up impatience, resentment, pride, and anger within me shall be rejected. Now I can see that the best of all prayers and the surest of all means to have nothing but Christ living and working in me as the Lamb of God that takes away every sin that ever had power over me, is to give up all resentment and sink down into humility and meekness under all adversity, contradiction and injustice, and turn the other cheek.
Oh, sweet surrender of myself to God! Happy death to every selfish desire! Blessed unction of a holy life that drives all evil out of my soul! Be my guide and governor wherever I go! Nothing else can take me from myself, nothing else can lead me to God; hell has no power where you are in control. May I never have a thought, bring forth a word, or do anything for myself or others but under the influence of this blessed inspiration.
Please forgive me, Barnabas, for this emotional outburst. I feel that I cannot help myself. The very sight of this heavenly land, this Sabbath of the soul, is overwhelming. To be freed from the miserable labor of self, to rest in meekness, humility, patience, and surrender to the Spirit of God, is like the joyful voice of the Bridegroom to my soul and leaves no wish in me but to be at the marriage feast of the Lamb.
The Marriage of the Lamb
Barnabas - And you will certainly come to this feast, John, if you keep to the path of meekness, humility, and patience, under a full surrender to God. But if you go aside from it, it is only preparing for yourself a harder death. For you must die to everything that you have accomplished under any other spirit than that of meekness, humility, and true resignation to God. Everything else has its rise from the fire of nature; it belongs to nothing else and must be given up. These virtues are the wedding garments; they are the lamps and vessels well furnished with oil. Nothing will replace them; they must have their own full and perfect work in you or you cannot enter into the highest possible union between God and the soul in this life.
Barnabas - Need I say more, John, to show you how to come into the sweet peace and joy of the Spirit of Love? Neither notions, nor speculations, nor heat, nor fervor, nor rules, nor methods can bring it forth. It is the child of light, and cannot possibly have any birth in you but only from the light of God rising in your soul.
But the light of God cannot arise or be found in you by any effort or contrivance of your own, but only in the way of meekness, humility, and patience, which waits, trusts, surrenders to, and expects all from the life-giving operation of God within you; creating, quickening and reviving in your spirit, that birth, and image, and likeness of Jesus in which the first father of mankind was created.
John - You need say no more, Barnabas. You have not only removed the difficulties that brought us together but have, by your clear teaching, fixed and confirmed us in a full belief of the wonderful truth that there is but one salvation for all mankind, and that is the life of God in the soul. God is one, human nature is one, salvation is one, and the way to it is one, and that is the desire of the soul turned to God through faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore, dear Barnabas, good-bye. If we see you no more in this life, you have sufficiently taught us how to seek and find every kind of goodness, blessing, and happiness in God alone.
END
APPENDIX A
The Exchanged Life
A letter from Hudson Taylor to his sister, Amelia., October, 1869
(used by permission of OMF International)
My own dear sister - So many thanks for your long dear letter . . . I do not think you have written me such a letter since we have been in China. I know it is with you as with me - you cannot, not you will not. Mind and body will not bear more than a certain amount of strain, or do more than a certain amount of work.
As to work, mine was never so plentiful, so responsible, or so difficult; but the weight and strain are all gone. The last month or more has been, perhaps, the happiest of my life; and I long to tell you a little of what the Lord has done for my soul.
I do not know how far I may be able to make myself intelligible about it, for there is nothing new or strange or wonderful - and yet, all is new! In a word: "Whereas I was blind, now I see."
Perhaps I shall make myself more clear if I go back a little. Well, Dearie, my mind has been greatly exercised for the past six or eight months, feeling the need personally, and for our Mission, of more holiness, life and power in our souls. But personal need stood first and was the greatest. I felt the ingratitude, the danger, the sin of not living nearer to God. I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for retirement and meditation - but all was without avail. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me.
I knew that if I could only abide in Christ all would be well, but I could not. I would begin the day with prayer, determined not to take my eye from Him for a moment, but pressure of duties, sometimes very trying, constant interruptions, often very wearing, would cause me to forget Him. Then one´s nerves get so fretted in this climate that temptations to irritability, hard thoughts and sometimes unkind words are all the more difficult to control. Each day brought its register of sin, failure, and lack of power. To will was indeed present with me, but how to perform, I found not.
Then came the question, "Is there no rescue? Must it be like this till the end - constant conflict and, instead of victory, too often defeat?" How, too, could I preach with sincerity that to those who receive Jesus, "to them gave He power to become the sons of God, " (i.e. God-like) when it was not so in my experience? Instead of growing stronger, I seemed to be getting weaker and to have less power against sin; and no wonder, for faith and even hope were getting very low. I hated myself; I hated my sin; and yet I gained no strength against it.
I felt I was a child of God; His Spirit in my heart would cry, in spite of all, "Abba, Father", but to rise to my privileges as a child, I was utterly powerless. I thought that holiness was to be gradually attained by a diligent use of the means of grace. I felt that there was nothing I so much desired in this world, nothing I so much needed. But the more I pursued and strove after holiness, the more it eluded my grasp, till hope itself almost died out, and I began to think that perhaps to make heaven the sweeter, God would not give it to us in this life.
I do not think I was striving to attain it in my own strength. I knew I was powerless. I told the Lord so, and asked Him to give me help and strength and sometimes I almost believed He would keep and uphold me. But on looking back in the evening, there was sin and failure to confess and mourn before God.
I would not give you the impression that this was the daily experience of all those long, weary months, but it tended to be a too frequent state of soul and I almost ended up in despair. And yet, never did Christ seem more precious a Savior who could and would save such a sinner! And sometimes there were seasons not only of peace but of joy in the Lord. But they were fleeting and at best there was a sad lack of power. Oh, how good the Lord has been in bringing this conflict to an end!
All the time I felt assured that there was in Christ all I needed, but the practical question was how to get it out. He was rich, but I was poor; He was strong, but I was weak. I knew full well that there was in the vine, in the root, the stem, abundant fatness; but how to get it into my puny little branch was the question.
As gradually the light dawned on me, I saw that faith was the only prerequisite to laying hold of His fullness and making it my own. But I had not this faith . . . I strove for it, but it would not come; I tried to exercise it, but in vain. Seeing more and more the wondrous supply of grace laid up in Jesus, the fullness of our precious Savior - my helplessness and guilt seemed to increase. Sins committed appeared but as trifles compared with the sin of unbelief which was their cause, which could not or would not take God at His word, but rather made Him a liar! Unbelief was, I felt, the damning sin of the world - yet I indulged in it. I prayed for faith but it did not come. What was I to do?
When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never seen it before. McCarthy, who had been much exercised by the same sense of failure, but saw the light before I did, wrote (I quote from memory): "But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One."
As I read I saw it all! "If we believe not, He remains faithful." I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed) that He had said, "I will never leave you." "Ah, here is rest!" I thought. "I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I´ll strive no more. For has He not promised to abide with me - never to leave me, never to fail me?" And Dearie, He never will!
But this was not all He showed me, nor one half. As I thought of the vine and the branches, what light the blessed Spirit poured directly into my soul! How great seemed my mistake in having wished to get the sap, the fullness, out of Him. I saw not only that Jesus would never leave me, but that I was a member of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. The vine now I see is not the root merely, but all - root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit; and Jesus is not only that; He is soil and sunshine, air and showers, and ten thousand times more than we have ever dreamed, wished for, or needed. Oh the joy of seeing this truth! I do pray that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened, that you may know and enjoy the riches freely given us in Christ.
Oh, my dear sister, it is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Savior, to be a member of Christ! Think what it involves. Can Christ be rich and I poor? Can your right hand be rich and the left poor? Or your head be well fed while your body starves? Again, think of this bearing on prayer. Could a bank clerk say to a customer, "It was only your hand that wrote that check, not you," or "I cannot pay this sum to your hand, but only to yourself?" No more can your prayers, or mine, be discredited if offered in the name of Jesus (i.e. not in your own name, or even for the sake of Jesus, but on the ground that we are His, His members) so long as we keep within the extent of Christ´s credit - a considerably wide limit!
If we ask anything unscriptural or not in accordance with the will of God, Christ Himself could not do that; but "If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us; and . . . we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him."
The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than another, is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no difference where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest positions He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient.
It matters little to my servant whether I send him to buy a few dollars worth of things or the most expensive articles. In either case he looks to me for the money and brings me his purchases. So if God places me in great perplexity, must He not give me much guidance; or in positions of great difficulty, much grace; or in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength? There is no fear that His resources will be unequal to the emergency! And His resources are mine for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me.
All this springs from the believers oneness with Christ. And since Christ is now living in my heart by faith, how happy I have been! I wish I could tell you instead of writing about it.
I am no better than before (in one sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be); but I am dead and buried with Christ - yes, and risen too and ascended; and now Christ lives in me, and "the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
I now believe that I am dead to sin. God reckons me so, and tells me to reckon myself so. He knows best. All my past experiences may have shown that it was not so; but I dare not say it is not, when He says it is. I feel and know that old things have passed away. I am as capable of sinning as ever, but Christ is realized as present as never before. He cannot sin; and He can keep me from sinning.
I am sorry to have to confess it, but I cannot say that since I have seen this light I have not sinned; but I do feel there was no need to have done so. And further - walking more in the light, my conscience has been more tender; sin has been instantly seen, confessed, pardoned; and peace and joy (with humility) instantly restored; with one exception, when for several hours peace and joy did not return - from lack, as I had to learn, of full confession, and from some attempt to justify self.
Faith, I now see, is "the substance of things hoped for" and not mere shadow. It is not less than sight, but more. Sight only shows the outward forms of things; faith gives the substance. You can rest on substance; you can feed on substance. Christ dwelling in the heart by faith (i.e. faith in His word of promise) is power indeed, is life indeed. And Christ and sin will not dwell together; nor can we experience His presence with love of the world or carefulness about "many things."
And now I must close. I have not said half I would like to say if I had more time. May God give you the grace to lay hold on these blessed truths. Do not let us continue to say, in effect, "Who shall ascend into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down from above." In other words, do not let us consider Him as far off when God has made us one with Him, members of His very body.
Nor should we look upon this experience, these truths, as only for the few. They are the birthright of every child of God, and no one can dispense with them without dishonor to our Lord. The only power for deliverance from sin or for serving the Lord is Christ.
Your own affectionate brother,
J. HUDSON TAYLOR
 
AFTERWORD
The teaching you have just read is the heart and center of the message of Jesus Christ. It is the New Covenant in his blood. "He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior." (Titus 3:4-6)
There is no other way to become a Christian than through the mercy of God to those who turn from self to seek forgiveness for sins that are past. There is also no way to find freedom from the bondage of besetting sins after we are born again than to turn to God and away from all our efforts to conquer sin. That is the moment we find that it is through faith in the indwelling Christ that gives us the victory.
Read this message over and over and over till you begin to experience the change coming into your life. It will probably not come like an explosion, but more like the yeast that slowly and quietly leavens the entire loaf of bread.
If you can get hold of this message by William Law, all else will fall into place in your walk with the Lord. This is the message of the saints down through the ages on how to live the overcoming life. You will find it confirmed over and over in books such as the following: THE LIFE OF JEANE GUYON, HUDSON TAYLOR'S SPIRITUAL SECRET, THE NORMAL CHRISTIAN LIFE, THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE, THE SAVING LIFE OF CHRIST, MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST, and many others.
Add to the above the witnesses the words of Andrew Murray, whose witness we find in the introduction to this booklet and it should convince us that this message is from God.
May God bless your life through the ministry of this little book.
Robert Fitts
Kona, Hawaii
October, 1999