Pilgrim
Portions
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Weeks
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We cling to Thee in weakness— The manger and the cross; We gaze upon Thy meekness, Through suffering, pain and loss.
Before we take up the cross for ourselves there is the cross for us. He suffered and gave His life a ransom.
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All must be forsaken in this world: every link with this world must be broken. The nearer anything is to the heart the more dangerous, the more it must be abhorred. Not that the affections are evil things: but Christ being rejected by this world everything that binds us to earth must be sacrificed for Him. Cost what it may, He must be followed; and one must know how to hate one’s own life, and even to lose it, rather than grow lax in following the Lord.
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The cross we shall have: and what of that? It is a good thing for us; it draws us away from the world; it breaks the will; it delivers from self by cutting, it may be, the next link to the heart. The cross has a delicious power, though not a pleasant thing; it would be no cross if it were.
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Jesus is the good Shepherd; He leads forth His own sheep, He walks before them and the sheep follow Him. The disciples were afraid as they followed Jesus; Jesus led them to the cross. The cross is on the road which leads to glory. … It is the cross which takes from us all that which hinders our realising Christ in glory.
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The more faithfulness there is in us the more sorrows doubtless, but then there will be consolations abounding; only let us take up the cross, and if it be really the cross we shall find Jesus with it and the earnest and spring of glory in our hearts.
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The Lord says, You must take up the cross and follow Me. If you follow Me I can give you the cross; that is all I have to give you now. … You shall be like Me, and close to Me, too; but what you must reckon on is the cross if you are going to glory. … Are you ready to take up your cross or have you a question if the cross is right or if there is any other road ? The Lord knows none, and I know none.
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All that leads us to be agreeable to the world and to the customs of men takes away the offence of the cross, and … puts us at a distance from Christ.
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When my heart thoroughly trusts Christ it is His cross and His reproach, and it has the sweetness of Christ and all is sweet.
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It is needful for us that we should pass through the sorrows as well as the joys of the work of the Lord, happy if our sorrows are His sorrows and His joys ours. The nearer we are to Him, and the more we thus reproduce the faithful image of what He is, the more we shall encounter the opposition of the world … and still more shall we experience the want of sympathy from Christians who will not walk to His footsteps. … But if we suffer with Jesus we shall reign with Him.
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To
whatever degree we enjoy the position of Jesus in
heaven we must also share His position here below, to
be hated. Pilgrim Portions - Meditations for the Day of Rest - Selected from the
Writings, Hymns, Letters, etc., of J. N. Darby SEDIN-Servicio Evangélico |
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