Then
Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come
after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever
loses his life for me will find it. What
good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?
Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? Matthew 16:24-26
We were considering
the Christian idea of 'putting on Christ', or first 'dressing up' as a son of
God in order that you may finally become a real son. What I want to make clear
is that this is not one among many jobs a Christian has to do; and it is not a
sort of special exercise for the top class. It is the whole of Christianity.
Christianity offers nothing else at all. ....
The Christian way is
different: harder, and easier. Christ says 'Give me All. I don't want so much
of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I
have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures
are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want
to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or
stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires
which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit.
I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own
will shall become yours.'
Both harder and easier
than what we are all trying to do. You have noticed, I expect, that Christ
Himself sometimes describes the Christian way as very hard, sometimes as very
easy. He says, 'Take up your Cross'—in other words, it is like going to be
beaten to death in a concentration camp. Next minute he says, 'My yoke is easy
and my burden light.' He means both
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