The Calvary Road | Page 5

worms for Him and with Him. The whole Sermon on the
Mount with its teaching of non-retaliation, love for enemies and
selfless giving, assumes that that is our position. But only the vision of
the Love that was willing to be broken for us can constrain us to be

willing for that.
"Lord, bend that proud and stifff necked I, Help me to bow the head
and die; Beholding Him on Calvary, Who bowed His head for me."
But dying to self is not a thing we do once for all. There may be an
initial dying when God first shows these things, but ever after it will be
a constant dying, for only so can the Lord Jesus be revealed constantly
through us.[footnote3: 2 Cor. 4: 10.] All day long the choice will be
before us in a thousand ways. It will mean no plans, no time, no money,
no pleasure of our own. It will mean a constant yielding to those around
us, for our yieldedness to God is measured by our yieldedness to man.
Every humiliation, everyone who tries and vexes us, is God's way of
breaking us, so that there is a yet deeper channel in us for the Life of
Christ.
You see, the only life that pleases God and that can be victorious is His
life--never our life, no matter how hard we try. But inasmuch as our
self-centred life is the exact opposite of His, we can never be filled with
His life unless we are prepared for God to bring our life constantly to
death. And in that we must co-operate by our moral choice.
CHAPTER 2
CUPS RUNNING OVER
Brokenness, however, is but the beginning of Revival. Revival itself is
being absolutely filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit, and that is
victorious living. If we were asked this moment if we were filled with
the Holy Spirit, how many of us would dare to answer "yes"? Revival
is when we can say "yes" at any moment of the day. It is not egoistic to
say so, for filling to overflowing is utterly and completely God's
work--it is all of grace. All we have to do is to present our empty,
broken self and let Him fill and keep filled. Andrew Murray says, "Just
as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds
you abased and empty, His glory and power flow in." The picture that
has made things simple and clear to so many of us is that of the human
heart as a cup, which we hold out to Jesus, longing that He might fill it

with the Water of Life. Jesus is pictured as bearing the golden water pot
with the Water of Life. As He passes by, He looks into our cup and if it
is clean, He fills to overflowing with the Water of Life. And as Jesus is
always passing by, the cup can be always running over. That is
something of what David meant, when he said, "My cup runneth over."
This is Revival--you and I--full to overflowing with blessing ourselves
and to others--with a constant peace in our hearts. People imagine that
dying to self makes one miserable. But it just the opposite. It is the
refusal to die to self that makes one miserable. The more we know of
death with Him, the more we shall know of His life in us, and so the
more of real peace and joy. His life, too, will overflow through us to
lost souls in a real concern for their salvation, and to our fellow
Christians in a deep desire for their blessing.
Under the Blood.
Only one thing prevents Jesus filling our cups as He passes by, and that
is sin in one of its thousand forms. The Lord Jesus does not fill dirty
cups. Anything that springs from self, however small it may be, is sin.
Self-energy or self-complacency in service is sin. Self-pity in trials or
difficulties, self-seeking in business or Christian work, self-indulgence
in one's spare time, sensitiveness, touchiness, resentment and
self-defence when we are hurt or injured by others, self-consciousness,
reserve, worry, fear, all spring from self and all are sin and make our
cups unclean.[*] But all of them were put into that other cup, which the
Lord Jesus shrank from momentarily in Gethsemane, but which He
drank to the dregs at Calvary--the cup of our sin. And if we will allow
Him to show us what is in our cups and then give it to Him, He will
cleanse them in the precious Blood that still flows for sin. That does not
mean mere cleansing from the guilt of sin, nor even from the stain of
sin--though thank God both of these are true--but from