(J.R. Miller, “Losing SELF in Christ” 1903) LISTEN to audio! Download audio
“If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” Luke 9:23-24
Only as we learn to die to self–do we become like Christ.
Human nature seeks all for self–and none for Christ. Becoming a Christian is the taking of Christ into the life, in the place of self. Then all is changed. Life has a new center, a new aim. Christ comes first. His plan for our lives is accepted, instead of our own. “What does the Master want us to do?” It is no longer the pressing of our own will, but “May Your will, not mine, be done.” 
This is the foundation of all Christian living–the dying of self, and the growing of Christ in the heart. …
This law of the dying of SELF, and the magnifying of Christ, is the only way to true usefulness.
Not until self has been renounced, is anyone ready for true Christian service. While we are consulting our own ease, our own comfort, our own interest or advantage in any form–we have not yet learned fully what the love of Christ means.
Because This law of the dying of SELF, and the magnifying of Christ–is the secret of Christian peace. When Christ is small, and SELF is large, life cannot be deeply restful. We grow impatient of whatever breaks our comfort. We resent whatever would hinder or oppose us.
But when SELF decreases and Christ increases–then the life of friction and worry is changed into quietness and peace. When the glory of Christ streams over this broken life of ours–peace comes, and the love of Christ brightens every spot and sweetens all bitterness. Trials are easy to bear–when self is small, and Christ is large.
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But the greatest thing possible in any life is to have the divine plan for it fulfilled–even though it thwarts every human hope and dashes away every earthly dream. It is not easy for us to learn this lesson. God’s ways are always better for us than our own!
We think we have all things arranged for our greatest happiness and our best good. Then God’s plan breaks in upon ours, and we look down through our tears upon the shattered fragments of our fine plans! –it is only God’s larger, wiser, better plan–displacing our little, imperfect, short-sighted one!
It is true, that God really thinks about our lives. He has a purpose of His own for them, a place He would have us fill, a work He would have us do. … Surely if God cares enough for us to make a plan for our life, a heavenly plan–it must be better than any plan of ours could be! It is a high honor, therefore–for His plan to take the place of ours, whatever the cost and the pain may be to us!
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