Readily I confess that I do not know what this means, for I have never obeyed it. What does it mean to me that Jesus Christ died? What great change has it wrought in my life? Do I feel the influence of this great fact? It seems to me that His tasting the wrath of God does not radically affect my dwelling here.
I profess that I have seen the blood, but do I see any difference in the way I look at things? It seems to me our Lord Jesus Christ is not more than mother and father and wife and children, and more than all the honors of this world. Is that a fact? Yes, I must admit it is true, for I still am concerned a great deal about what men think of me. If I denied myself, there would never be the slightest hurt over what men do to me, say to me, or think about me.
If I told you of some dear woman who had lost her husband and had no food and no means of support, that would be something to cause you to do without yourself to help her. I would too for it moves me greatly. Yet we can hear of the sufferings of Christ, of the fact that He went into a place where the wrath of God burned fiercely, and that to rescue sinners like us, and we remain indifferent to His unutterable woes. Surely this is not denying self, but is rather exalting self and feeding self and loving self We do love self, do we not?
Lord, give us grace! What if there were no Christ, no gospel of the blood, no redemption, no mercy, no help, and we were left to ourselves to face the inflexible, condemning law of the Holy One?
Ah, but there is that good news. Now in order to be a partaker of the great grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we simply believe in His efficacious blood and at that instant self is dealt a death blow, and we spend our time realizing the truth of "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself."
What does this mean? I don't know, but the desire is to learn by His grace, and be enabled to finally have some spiritual knowledge of "Old God I" who causes me so much anguish.