For some years I had felt there was something wrong. Indeed, though at times earth’s ambitions
occupied heart and hands, yet there was an aching void_a spot within_which nothing had yet
reached. The crisis had come at last. The awful truth had dawned upon me that all my past efforts
had been in vain:after all, I was only u poor, helpless, incorrigible sinner. But at the same time a
light, glorious. as it was sweet, had shined into me. It was the revelation that Jesus had done the work
which was necessary to save such a sinner. If Jesus had made propitiation for my sins I was free. And
indeed I was free, and praised God for it from the depths of my soul. Worship was no longer a form,
confined to a place or a time_it was "in spirit and in truth."

But sorrow was soon renewed. The company of God, my Father_the fellowship of Christ, my
Saviour and Lord_were the sweetest part of life now. To read the Scriptures, to sing, to pray, to
meet with them who enjoyed what I did was a hundredfold more than I had ever found in anything
in the world before. But, all of a sudden, while engaged in prayer perhaps, or reading the Scriptures,
or other holy exercises, some unholy thought, unbidden and hateful, would pass through my heart.
This startled me. The sight of Christ on the cross suffering the judgment of sin had been so vivid that
nothing now could shake the assurance of the redemption which was mine through it, but how could
I stay close to the God whose Presence I loved, with such unholy thoughts passing through me? I
could not, for I knew His holiness too well to think that He could allow that. If in prayer, I could only
leap from my knees and flee, as a poor leper would have done had he suddenly found himself in the.
Temple of Jerusalem.

What could I do now? Nature perhaps was too well fed and cared for. Starve and subdue it then, and
comfort will return. For one whole year that was tried, and with such austerity were its claims
repressed that bones once well covered now stuck out. But all was of no effect:the sin was there at
the end as at the beginning.

At the time when the case seemed hopeless I was reading the Epistle to the Colossians. Chapter three
had been reached, and the first clause of its third verse had arrested my attention. It said, "For ye are
dead." I answered "O Lord, that I might be dead, and not be distressed any more by the sin that is in
me!"

I returned to my verse, and it still said "For ye are dead." And again I uttered the same prayer to God.

Once more, and with a strange emphasis, the verse said "For ye are dead." And now the sweet light
which had broken in a year before broke in afresh. I had thought that to be "dead" was by some
special experience:now it broke upon me that it was a fact. God had put me to death in the death of
Christ, and in that death I had died once and forever. So now He could say to me "For ye are dead,"
_ not ye ought to be, as I had thought. And if I had indeed thus been put to death in and with Christ,
then had I also been raised up in and with Christ. So the first verse of my chapter spoke.

As the blessed truth of all this broke upon me, and illumined at once a vast portion of the Scriptures
_indeed their great underlying mystery_I could but exclaim, What a fool I have been! Here have
I been this long time trying to kill a man who was already dead. . Now I could stay on my knees,
keep on peacefully in all intercourse with God despite the consciousness of sin within. That sin is
the very nature of the man that God put to death on the cross of Christ _ the "old man." The painful
experience I had gone through had taught me to hate it, and made me thankful beyond expression
at such a deliverance from it. Now, free from that dreadful self, I could "serve in newness of spirit,"
and "bring forth fruit unto God.”

(From Help and Food.)