A Testimony

In the following quotations from ‘‘Starlight,’’ by G. Sterrenberg, the great truth about the Cross is expressed in simple and powerful words. Let the chapters on ‘‘The Fellowship of the Cross’’ and ‘‘The Holy Spirit and the Cross’’ be specially read.

Our Head Christ took the lowest place on the Cross, and so He has marked out for us His members, the lowest place. The brightness of God’s glory (Heb. 1: 3), became the rejected of men (Isaiah 53: 4). Since that time the only right we have is to be the last and the lowest. When we claim anything more we have not yet rightly understood the Cross.

We seek for a higher life, we shall find it if we sink deeper into the Cross-fellowship with our Lord. God has given the Crucified One the highest place (Rev. 5). Shall we not do the same? We do this when from hour to hour we act as those who are crucified with Him (Gal. 2: 19, 20). Thus we honour the Crucified Lord.

We long for full victory. We find this as we more fully enter into the fellowship of His Cross. The Lamb obtained His greatest victory with His hands and feet nailed to the Cross. We abide in the shadow of the Almighty only so long as we abide under the shadow of the Cross. The Cross must be our home. There alone are we sheltered. We first understand our own Cross when we have understood His. And we desire to get so close to it that we not only view it but touch it; yes, still more that we take up the Cross, and so it becomes as some one has said, an inner Cross. Then the Cross asserts itself in us, and we experience His power which especially manifests itself in this, that we do not faint under it but carry it with joy.

What would Jesus be without His Cross? His pierced feet have bruised the head of the enemy, and His pierced hands have despoiled him utterly (Matt. 12: 29). What are we without the Cross? Do not let the Cross go, but hold it fast. Do we think that we can go by another road than that He trod? Many can make no progress because they will not take up the Cross.