O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.
—Matthew 26:39
The death of Christ on the cross is the highest and holiest thing that can be known of Him even in the glory of heaven. And the highest and holiest thing that the Holy Spirit can work in us is to take us up and keep us in the fellowship of the cross of Christ. We need to enter deeply into the truth that Christ, the beloved Son of the Father, could not return to the glory of heaven until He had first given Himself over to death. As this great truth opens up to us, it will help us to understand how, in our lives and in our fellowship with Christ, it is impossible for us to share His life until we have first surrendered ourselves every day to die to sin and the world, and so to abide in unbroken fellowship with our crucified Lord.
From Christ alone we can learn what it means to have fellowship with His sufferings and to be “made conformable unto his death” (Philippians 3:10). In the agony of Gethsemane, when He looked toward what a death on the cross would be, He got such a vision of what it meant to die the accursed death under the power of sin, with God’s face turned from Him so that not a single ray of its light could penetrate the darkness, that He prayed that the cup might pass from Him. But when no answer came and He understood that the Father could not allow the cup to pass by, He yielded up His whole will and life: “Thy will be done” (Matthew 26:42).
Dear Christian, in these words of your Lord in His agony, you can enter into fellowship with Him. In His strength, your heart will be made strong to believe most confidently that God in His omnipotence will enable you to yield up everything, because you have been crucified with Him.
“Thy will be done” (verse 42). Let this be the deepest and highest word in your life. In the power of Christ, with whom you have been crucified, and in the power of His Spirit, the definite daily surrender to the ever blessed will of God will become the joy and strength of your life.