Individuality is the husk of the personal life. Individuality is all elbows, it separates and isolates. It is the characteristic of the child and rightly so; but if we mistake individuality for the personal life, we will remain isolated.

The shell of individuality is God's created natural covering for the protection of the personal life; but individuality must go in order that the personal life may come out and be brought into fellowship with God.

Individuality counterfeits personality as lust counterfeits love. God designed human nature for Himself; individuality debases human nature for itself.

The characteristics of individuality are independence and self-assertiveness. It is the continual assertion of individuality that hinders our spiritual life more than anything else. If you say - "I cannot believe," it is because individuality is in the road; individuality never can believe. Personality cannot help believing.

Watch yourself when the Spirit of God is at work. He pushes you to the margins of your individuality, and you have either to say - "I shan't," or to surrender, to break the husk of individuality and let the personal life emerge. The Holy Spirit narrows it down every time to one thing (cf. Matthew 5:23-24). The thing in you that will not be reconciled to your brother is your individuality.

God wants to bring you into union with Himself, but unless you are willing to give up your right to yourself He cannot. "Let him deny himself" - deny his independent right to himself, then the real life has a chance to grow .

In the light of eternity, who are those who shall stand before the throne arrayed in white robes? Are they those who have come out of ease and pleasure, out of untroubled calm and unbroken human relationships? Nay, rather they are those who have come out of great tribulation.

Had Milton not been blind, neither he nor we could have seen so clearly, and he could never have written,

My vision Thou hast dimmed, that I may see Thyself, Thyself alone.

Out of blindness he learned the lesson so needed today by those cut off from an active life, that “They also serve who only stand and wait.”

If Tennyson had not lost his friend Hallam, we should never have had his “In Memoriam.”

One cannot have a victory without a battle! Character without conflict! Perfect love without suffering!

As we visit the pearl fisheries, we find that life without pain leaves no pearl; that the life lived in sluggish ease, unwounded, without suffering or long-continued friction, forms no jewel.

As we pass the dwellings of men we find that, without suffering, the pearl of great price, the highest human character, is not formed.

Suffering is linked with joy for those who take it aright. If you suffer without succeeding, it is that someone else may succeed. If you succeed without suffering, it is because someone else has suffered.

“Is there no other way, O God, Except through sorrow, pain and loss, To stamp Christ’s image on my soul? No other way except the Cross?”

And then a voice stills all my soul, As stilled the waves on Galilee:

“Canst thou not bear the furnace heat, If ’mid the flames I walk with thee?

“I bore the Cross, I know its weight, I drank the cup I hold for thee; Canst thou not follow where I lead? I’ll give the strength—lean thou on me.”

SELECTED

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence.

God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

I am crucified with Christ.

They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us.

Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess: but be filled with the Spirit.

If any man will come after me let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Let us not sleep, as do others: but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober.

Denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world: looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.