I Corinthians 15:31

The suggestion is this: all ministry for the Master must be possessed of the sacrificial spirit of the Master. If Paul is to help in the redemption of Rome, he must himself incarnate the death of Calvary. If he is to be a minister of Life, he must “die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31 KJV). The spirit of Calvary is to be reincarnate in Ephesus, in Athens, in Rome . . . the sacrificial succession is to be maintained through the ages, and we are to “fill up in [our] flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions.”

Here, then, is a principle: the gospel of a broken heart demands the ministry of bleeding hearts. As soon as we cease to bleed, we cease to bless. When our sympathy loses its pangs, we can no longer be the servants of the Passion. I do not know how any Christian service is to be fruitful if the servant is not primarily baptized in the spirit of a suffering compassion. We can never heal the needs we do not feel. Tearless hearts can never be the heralds of the Passion. We must bleed if we would be the ministers of the saving blood. We must, by our own suffering sympathies, “fill up in [our] flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions.”