How To Die To Self

G. D. Watson (1845-1923)

Contents

How to Die to Self

False Notions of Dying to Self

Prerequisites to Dying to Self

Steps in Dying to Self

The Daily Cross

What Is the Daily Cross?

A False Conception

Daily Trials

The Benefit of Deep Crucifixion

Suffering

Degree of Crucifixion

Resulting Blessings

Detachment from Earthly Things

How to Die to Self

Many deeply spiritual persons who allow their faith to be molded by the words of Scripture, and by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, instead of a narrow human theology, are clearly convinced that there is a real death to self which comes after the work of sanctification.

They detect many manifestations of the creature life, which are not clearly sinful on the one side, nor yet really Christ-like on the other side, but a middle zone of creaturely activity and self, which the Spirit shows them must be passed beyond or crucified, in order to reach deep abiding union with God where there is "none of self and all of Christ Jesus." The very persons who deny this state of grace, are the ones who most positively manifest in manifold ways their need of being dead to self. I am writing this not for those who have any theory to maintain, but for the humble and simple-hearted saints who really hunger to sink out of self into God. I remark in the first place that there are some false notions as to how to die to self.

False Notions of Dying to Self

One false notion is, the conceiving of a wrong hatred to ourselves. The more we are divinely illuminated the more minutely and astonishingly do we apprehend the almost infinite blindness, foolishness and meanness of our past lives. Unless we are kept very mellow and subdued, this sight of our meanness may tempt us to form a bitter, revengeful feeling toward ourselves, and under such an impression, we may feel like punishing ourselves in some unnatural way, or by the making of unscriptural and rash vows. This is the source of cruel and unnatural penances.

Another false notion is the choosing of some line of mortification for ourselves, or the selection of some special cross. This will defeat the very end we want to attain, which is the loss of our will in all things. But the very act of choosing a cross for ourselves keeps alive our own preferences and furnishes a secret nourishment- to self-will, and furnishes a little place for self to live under the very pretext of dying to self.

Another erroneous view is that we can sink to a deeper death by over work, by engaging ourselves to a heavier task than we can reasonably accomplish. Even if the extra work be of the most religious kind, still it supplies a field for self-activity. It is in this respect that St. Paul speaks of persons under a false zeal, going to every extreme of self-imposed poverty, and even burning at the stake, yet all under the principle of self-action, and not that complete abnegation of self which is caused by being entirely possessed by divine love.

Another false notion is that we are to indolently leave ourselves to the mere law of development, and if we can on]y be kept from well defined sins, we are not to tax ourselves with anything deeply spiritual but leave ourselves to grow without a diligent attention to growth. This is the opposite error from some of the foregoing. It is to be feared that this last error is the one that most persons drift into.

Prerequisites to Dying to Self But now let us face the real question, How to die to self, and let Christ be all and all in us. In the first place, do we really believe such a state is attainable? Have we looked at the blessed Christ until we have obtained a clear conception of what it is to lose ourselves in union with Him? Have our spiritual eyes surveyed this blessed possibility, until its attainability in this life has become a settled conviction with us? Then have we calmly, deeply, irreversibly settled it that there shall be none of self and all of Christ? Are we prepared to make that the motto of our lives? Do we think it, dream it, pray it, breathe, it, drink of it, bathe ourselves in it, until it becomes a subtle, steady, all prevailing passion in our minds, none of self and all of Jesus?

As we tread this golden shore, let us go slow and walk softly on these shining sands. Let us not launch out in those fathomless waters without duly counting the cost and without ample ballast in our ships. If we have determined to make this celestial excursion entirely out of self into the depths of the Divine Nature, let us remember that the first step toward this perfect death is to have a pure, divine motive. That motive must be nothing less than the ever blessed triune God Himself, that is, it must be the seeking of God as our all and in all, our last end, our exceeding great reward, so that it will be for His glory, His beauty, and praise, through us, and by us, and that we have no desire to exist except as a channel for His outflow, a chosen vessel for the embodiment of His life, and the outbeaming of His glorious attributes through us.

The deepest death to self lies in the motives and intentions, hence this all-consuming motive to want to be nothing but a capacity for Christ to live in, lies at the foundation of the death of self, and the highest life of Christ. With this pure motive fixed in the heart, we are to habitually and willingly accept of every occasion for humiliation and self-abasement, which God's providence brings to us. While on the one hand we are neither to make or seek a cross, on the other hand we are to sweetly and willingly accept of every blow, or mortification, or inconvenience, or painful annoyance, which comes to us in the order of God's providential will.

Steps in Dying to Self

Humiliation is the very quintessence of the Christ-life, and we must appreciate every opportunity of sinking into humility. Hence when reproaches, unkind treatment, poverty, loneliness, persecution, mental distresses, seeming failure in our work, disappointments, deep perplexities, or any disagreeable thing comes to us, if we are in a state of divine recollection, we are to calmly face these things, as appropriate occasions for losing our own will and letting the omnipotence of God take charge of them. We can thereby in these humiliations be more delicately and firmly knit to the will of God.

Another effectual method of dying to self is to be exceedingly careful not to receive human honors or praise into our hearts. If we are worthy of having enemies, who will seek opportunities of humiliating us, we will also have some friends who will love and honor us. As a rule, the more bitter our enemies are, the stronger our friends will love us, and there will be times when we will be honored in spite of ourselves. But if we open our hearts to receive this honor and in our thoughts feed upon it as a social honey, or if we allow human praise to inflate our thoughts, it will instantly breed a human self-esteem, and this becomes a hot-bed of the self-life.

It requires great humiliation and divine reconciliation for evangelists, preachers, holiness teachers, and singers, and writers, not to lose the Christ-life at this point.

Another step in the death of self is to seek in everything to be child-like, and extremely simple in our manners, words, dress, tastes, and interior experiences. Self naturally feeds on complexity and things grand and large and loud. Christ is the very embodiment of divine and eternal simplicity. The deeper we sink into the Christ-life, the more we become disappointing to the people. Our learning, or talents will not show off to such fine advantage. We talk less. We live more quietly and interiorly. Our labors are less ostentatious. We do more hard fighting with fewer dress-parades. We bring things to pass through prayers and faith in God more than by outward showy methods. We love to live like God, a profound hidden life, in which people think we don't amount to very much. This is one of the tests of sinking out of self.

Another step in the death of self is the living more keenly by pure faith, depending less on all spiritual phenomena, and the clear apprehension by pure faith that the three persons of the Godhead possess and pervade us, and that every atom of our lives is in the grasp of His will. By a perpetual act of entire abandonment we are by the simple act of believing most blessedly united in the deep of our being to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Whenever we enter a new and higher region in the Christ-life, there will be some distinguished marks of grace, some memorable and blessed manifestations of the Holy Spirit, working within us, in the shape of conscious fullness, or a flow of sweetness, or spoken words, or bright mental illuminations, or prophetic premonitions, or abounding joy. Some gracious phenomena will serve as a memorial, or a spiritual land-mark. To linger too much on these things, or to rest on them, will furnish a refined nourishment of the self-life. Hence the deepest conformity to Jesus will lead us to be weaned from ecstasies, and bright inward lights, which are very essential in their place, but to be constantly drinking the Christ-life by an act of pure faith is the path to the deepest death of self.

Another way of dying to self is to thoughtfully avoid making our religious life an unnecessary burden, or cross, or tax, to our families and loved ones. Sometimes those who want to be real Christ-like, for lack of wisdom, adopt some mode of life, or devotion, or theory of sanctity, which is a source of positive peevishness and disagreeableness to those with whom they live. This is exactly opposite to Christ, and feeds self instead of killing it. We should seek to be yielding, and pliant, obliging and accommodating.

In all non-essentials, where a well defined principle of right is not involved, we must surrender our little choices and tastes and ease, for the well pleasing and gratification of others. To be rigid and stubborn on non-essentials is simply self-righteousness and a stronghold of self.

Lastly, in everything we are to seek our nothingness and the allness of God. This is to become a daily habit of our motives and intentions, to distrust ourselves, to ignore our own wisdom, to look to Christ for the most minute guidance that we may be one in all things.

2 The Daily Cross

"Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." -Mark 8:34

It is only after we are crucified to the carnal nature that we can bear our daily cross in the true spirit of our Master. It is by the denial or death of sinful self that we enter the state of perfect obedience in which the daily trials and crosses can be borne in deep fellowship with Jesus. The very order of the words our Saviour uses, seems to indicate the steps of experience. "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." Here we have:

-first, crucifixion of the natural self-life;

-then the purified soul bearing its daily sufferings and hindrances,

-which brings it into constant walking and fellowship with Christ.

It is this daily cross which leads the sanctified soul into a deeper death to self, according to its love and fervor of obedience.

What Is the Daily Cross?

What is our daily cross? It is that one or more things which are unavoidable in our lives, and which produce suffering of body or mind or heart. It is that thing which in our poor judgment seems to hinder the easy flow of our religious life. Sometimes our cross may be composed of a combination of things, but as a general rule, it is some one instrument or cause of suffering- to the soul. Were there no suffering of some kind involved, then there could be no cross at all, for the only thing in across is its pain. The outward form of the daily cross may change with years, or the same cross may continue till death; but in some form it abides. It is as impossible for the true saint not to have some cross as it is to walk in the sunshine without having shadow. The Holy Ghost gives us to understand plainly that the multitudes of jolly, ease-loving, and easy-going religionists, who bear no daily suffering with Jesus, are only sectarian-born religious bastards, and not really kingdom-born souls. (See Hebrews 12:8.)

It is your daily cross that makes you weep more than any other thing; that sends you to frequent I prayer; that leads you to ransack the promises; that makes you cry out, like Jesus, "Father, why is this?" that causes you to put both arms around the neck of your Saviour in yearning love; that makes you sick of earth and self; that gives you wistful longings for heaven. Oh, precious old homely, daily cross, what deep, tender, far-reaching effects thou hast wrought through all these prayer-paved years!

A False Conception

There is an hallucination about getting free from our daily cross which needs to be broken; it is a daydream worked up in our minds, a beautiful vision that hangs just ahead of us, that some day we will be rid of our cross, that we will have no painful annoyances, and then our feet can fly unimpeded toward heaven. Alas! that so many saints should get their eyes set on this will-o'-the-wisp dream. If you want deep union with Jesus, getting rid of your cross is the very thing to defeat it. There is a better victory than freedom from the daily instrument of pain, and that is to pass into that ocean-depth of the Christ-life where every trial can be borne in exactly the same spirit that Jesus bore. Boundless, tender love is the condition for triumphant bearing of our daily cross. When our cross has driven us so deep into the warm ocean-heart of Jesus that we are kept melted and flooded with quiet, lowly, tender, yearning love for God and His kingdom, then the cross will have proved its own balsam, and then every trial will be fuel to the flame of love.

To love the cross is understood by only a few Christians. People fancy it means loving the cross on which Christ died. No; it means loving that very cross in our lives that drives us into deep oneness with Christ; it is to meekly, patiently, lovingly embrace to our inner heart the very principle of self-abnegation and self-nothingness. It is often the case that devout Romanists wear hair-cloth and iron or knotted cords next to their skin. All that is too superficial; it does not enter deep enough. Jesus did no such foolish thing. To bear our daily trial as Jesus did, we must take it into our very hearts love, and bear it meekly, quietly, lovingly, as unto God, and not to man.

Daily Trials

How long it takes to accept our daily trials as a gift direct from the hands of our Lord! His eyes are on us; He notices our inner feelings, thoughts, and choices as to our cross. The spirit in which we bear our trials here will mark the grade of our standing in the world to come. It is by persevering prayer that we get on the sunny side of every sorrow, and on the triumphant side of every trial.

It is the sharp grain of sand cutting its way into the oyster that is enveloped with the life-juices of the creature and turned into a pearl; so our daily cross, cutting its way into our life's core by being folded round and round with many tears and loving prayers, becomes in our souls the very pearl of Christ-likeness, and more valuable than all our own chosen blessings. The Holy Ghost can reveal to us the very disposition in which Jesus bore His daily trials, and when we bear ours in the same spirit, then indeed do we have fellowship with Him.

If it does not please our Father to remove our trials, it is because He wants us to seek and receive an overflow of tender love that will bear us on over the trials and in spite of them. Pure, limitless love is the only true victory over trial. Intense love for Jesus is the only water that can make our thorny cross ripen its fruit; so do not cut down your cross, but water it with more love and prayer, and wait for its golden apples.

3 The Benefit of Deep Crucifixion

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." -Galatians 2:20

"But 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." -Galatians 6:14 The word crucifixion, as it applies to us in a Christian sense, may be defined as any pain or suffering which renders us dead to sin or to self, or to the things of time and sense. There may be many kinds of sorrow and suffering which do not serve the purpose of true crucifixion.

Suffering In order that suffering may be a thorough mortification to us, it must be put in the will of God, and yielded to the operation of the Holy Spirit. When we yield ourselves absolutely up to God, and trust Him to take charge of every particle of our being and life and circumstances, it is then that His omnipotence takes gentle and firm possession of all our trials and sufferings, and makes them work a true crucifixion in us.

It does not matter what the occasion of the suffering may be. It may come from our own sins, or poverty, or ill-health, or loss of friends, or separations, or terrible and protracted temptations or assaults of evil spirits, or the hatred of others, or great disappointment, or divine chastisements; it may come from many of these sources; but let it come from any cause in the universe, if we give it over entirely into the hands of God, and sink ourselves into His will, with a perfect desire for Him to work His best will in us, He will make every pain, every groan, every tear, every particle of our suffering, work in us a death to sin and to self, and to all things on earth which will be for our highest perfection and for His glory.

Degree of Crucifixion The depth and power of the spiritual life in every person depends exactly on the degree of their crucifixion. There is a divine mystery in suffering, a strange and supernatural power in it, which has never been fathomed by the human reason. There never has been known great saintliness of soul which did not pass through great suffering. There is such a thing as suffering reaching a state of perfection. When we suffer so severe and so long that we become dead to it, and divinely indifferent as to how much we suffer or how long it will continue; when the suffering soul reaches a calm, sweet carelessness, when it can inwardly smile at its own suffering, and does not even ask God to deliver it from the suffering, then it has wrought its blessed ministry; then patience has its perfect work; then the crucifixion begins to weave itself into a crown.

It is in this state of the perfection of suffering that the Holy Spirit works many marvelous things in our souls. In such a condition, our whole being lies perfectly still under the hand of God; every faculty of the mind and will and heart are at last subdued; a quiet- ness of eternity settles down into the whole being; the tongue grows still, and has but few words to say; it stops asking God questions; it stops crying "Why hast thou forsaken me?" The imagination stops building air-castles, or running off on foolish lines; the reason is tame and gentle; it stops debating, and quits all dogmatism; the will ceases from its own activity; the bluster and zeal of self-action are taken out of it; the choices are annihilated; it has no choice in anything but the purpose of God.

The affections are weaned from all creatures and all things; it loves nothing but God and God's will in I any given thing; it has no private ends to serve; it has no motives except to please God; it is so dead that nothing can hurt it, nothing can offend it, nothing can hinder it, nothing can get in its way; for, let its circumstances be what they may, it seeks only for God and His will, and it feels assured that God is making everything in the universe, good or bad, past or present, work together for its good.

Oh, the blessedness of being absolutely conquered! of losing our own strength, and wisdom, and good- ness, and plans, and desires, and being where every atom of our nature is like placid Galilee under the omnipotent feet of our Jesus.

Resulting Blessings

Among great blessings resulting from sanctified suffering, is that it gives a great wideness to the heart, and a universality of love. This uttermost crucifixion destroys the littleness and narrowness of the mind; it gives an immensity to the sympathies, and an ocean-like divine love, which is beyond words. This is because creature-love is crucified, and divine love floods the whole being. It is as if every drop of blood had been drawn out of the body, and the blood of a divine being had been poured into all the veins. The heart which has been perfectly crushed with suffering until it is dead to all its desires will be so inundated with divine charity that it will stretch itself out, and wrap the world round with fold on fold of boundless, spotless, impartial love for every creature that God has made. This immensity of heart loves all nations alike; it is absolutely free from all bigotry, or caste, or natural prejudice, or political partisanship, or sectarian feeling. It is emphatically a citizen of heaven; it takes as much interest in the kingdom of God in one place as another; it feels as much interest in souls being saved in one denomination or one country as in another.

This may seem strong meat, and many Christians will disagree with these words, but when they reach this condition, they will find the foregoing words perfectly true to their experience. When we reach the deepest death of self, we love all creatures with God's love, and as God loves them, up to our measure; it is not so much we that love others, as it is that God loves them through us. We become the channels through which the Holy Spirit flows; He pours His thoughts through our minds, His prayers and loves through our hearts, His choices through our wills. He breaks away all the banks and boundaries of our narrow education, or creed, or theology, or nationality, or race, and takes us up into the boundlessness of His own life and feelings.

Another great benefit of perfect suffering, is an inexpressible[e tenderness. It is the very tenderness of Jesus filling the thoughts, the feelings, the manners, the words, the tones of the voice. The whole being is soaked in a sea of gentleness. Everything hard, bitter, severe, critical, flinty, has been crushed into powder. Great sufferers are noted for their quiet gentleness. As we approach them, it is like going to a tropical climate in mid-winter; the very air around them seems mellow; their slow, quiet words are like the gentle ripple of summer seas on the sand; their soft, pathetic eyes put a hush upon our rudeness or loudness of voice. There are many souls who are earnest Christians - nay, many who are sanctified - who have an indescribable something in them which needs the crushing and melting of some great crucifixion. Their tongues rattle so much, their spirit is dictatorial or harsh, they measure other people by themselves; there is something in their constitution which seems to need the grinding into fine flour. It is well worth the crushing of hearts with an overwhelming sorrow, if thereby God can bring us out into that beautiful tenderness and sweetness of spirit which is the very atmosphere of heaven. This kind of tenderness cannot be voluntarily put on; it.cannot come from training; neither is it a transitory sweet- ness, which is like a spring day intruding itself into winter; but it is that fixed and all-pervading gentleness of spirit which is like the fixed climate of the Torrid zone. It is the finest outgrowth of perfect suffering.

Detachment from Earthly Things

Another benefit of complete crucifixion is the detachment from all earthy things which it produces. The mind has a thousand-fold attachment to the things in this world, which it is not aware of until they are ground to pieces by suffering. Did you ever notice how your soul stretches itself out into ten thousand things of earth and time, and how the fingers of your thoughts grasp thousands of things! Just look at your mind; for every friend you have on earth, there is a distinct attachment; for every piece of property you own on earth, there is a distinct attachment; for the ten thousand recollections in your bygone life, there is a particular sentiment or attachment; for all the scenes of earth and associations of time, there is an attachment; and besides all these outward things, look at that vast, invisible world within your own self - your own desires, and hopes, and dreams, and prospects, and gratifications for your self, your family, your Church, your nation, your particular party; see how you have become attached to your own thoughts, until your heart seems to have a million springs to it which flow round and round countless objects in this world!

I am not speaking of things positively wicked; I am not speaking of things which are stigmatized as sinful; but of those things which Christian people recognize as innocent, and yet, in a thousand ways, they fetter the heart and bind it to earth. Perfect suffering will untie the heart, and gently loosen every cord that binds us to our foes or friends-to all our possessions; to all the things of the past; to all attractive sights and sounds-and give us such perfect inward liberty from everything on earth that the things of heaven can flow down into us, until we feel that we are citizens of the New Jerusalem a hundred times more powerfully than that we are the citizens of any earthly city or country. We feel deep in our hearts that, like St. Paul, we have already "come to an innumerable company of angels, and the Church of the first-born, and the spirits of just men made perfect." The coming of the Lord is so real to us, our whole being is pervaded with the sweet, attractive powers of the world to come. Like the detached balloon, we float toward the supernatural. The heavenly world comes into us exactly in proportion as all the affairs of earth are emptied out of us, and nothing so perfectly empties us and detaches us as perfect suffering. It is in this way that God makes our perfect crucifixion our crown of unfading joy.

How to Die to Self is a wonderful beacon in the current evangelical landscape, simply because the world, and much of the visible church with it, has turned its back on submission to the will of God in daily life. Instead, it is in 'in all out quest for personal affluence and happiness; in a word: selfishness. There is an assumption that goes like this: ''as long as we do not directly violate one of God's overt commands in the Bible, we are 'free' to enjoy life and do what we want." And "what we want" becomes a never-ending pursuit for the next pleasurable thing, i.e., "what would I enjoy today!"

But the scriptures speak plainly that "Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it" -Mark 8:34-35. And "whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple" -Luke 14:33. G. D. Watson speaks from the heart in searching out how to practically apply these verses to our lives. Let every person truly seeking first His kingdom and His right- eousness take heed.

George D. Watson (1845-1923) was born in Virginia in the United States into a committed Christian family with six children. As a youth, he was self-willed. His conversion came dur- ing the American Civil War, after he joined the Southern Army at age 18, during a camp meeting for soldiers, when he gave his life to Christ. He began holding prayer meetings of his own, with endless enthusiasm for his new Master. In poor health after the war, he attended a Bible Institute and began to preach the Gospel in 1868, Pastoring several churches. He came to an unusual whole-hearted commitment to the Lord, a 'death to self' that allowed him long periods of uninterrupted communion and spiritual fervor with the living God. Later he traveled extensively throughout the USA, several times to Eng- land, and the Far East.

G. D. Watson's books are out of copyright, and are being republished by:

Harvey Christian Publishers

U.K. P. 0. Box 510

Cheadle Stoke on Trent STl02NQ England phone: (44) 1782-393063 , or:

Harvey Christian Publishers

L.L.P. 70 Dodson Drive

Yanceyville, NC 27379 USA phone: (336) 694-1016.

"How to Die to Self' originally appeared as chapter 4 in Pure Gold.

"The Daily Cross" originally appeared as chapter 15 in Soul Food.

"The Benefit of Deep Crucifixion" originally appeared as chapter 7 in Soul Food.

How to Die to Self in booklet form is printed in the USA and available from:

CHAPEL LIBRARY

2603 W. Wright St. Pensacola, FL 32505

Phone: (850) 438-6666, Fax: (850) 438-0227 email: chapel@mountzion.org A Ministry of Mt. Zion Bible Church

SoundLife