Scripture: "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."--Galatians 5:25 "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."--2 Corinthians 5:17
"Man by his fall had fallen from a life in God into a life of self, an animal life of self-love, self-esteem and self-seeking, m the poor perishing enjoyments of the world. All sin , death .and hell are nothing else but this kingdom of self or the various operations of self-love, self-esteem and self-seeking.
"On the Day of Pentecost a new dispensation of God came forth. On God's part it was the operation of the Holy Spirit in gifts and graces upon the whole Church. On man's part it was the adoration of God in spirit and in truth. All this was to make way for the immediate and continual operation of God in the soul; that man, baptized with the Holy Spirit, should absolutely renounce self, and give up his whole soul to use the faculties of his mind, and all the outward things of the world, as enlightened and inspired by the Holy Spirit.
"The kingdom of self is the fall of man and the great apostasy from the life of God in the soul. The Kingdom of Christ is the Spirit and Power of God manifesting itself in the birth of a new inward man. When the call of God to repentance first arisei in thy soul, be retired, silent, passive and humbly attentive to the new risen life within thee, disregarding the working of thine own will and reason.
"Hence is to be seen the true ground and necessity of that universal mortification and self-denial with regard to all senses, appetites, tempers, passions and judgments. Our own life is to be hated; and the reason is plain, because there is nothing lovely in it. By this knowing and owning our own nothingness and inability, that we have no other capacity for good, but that of receiving it from God alone, self is wholly denied, and its kingdom destroyed.
"You know now to what it is that you are daily to die, and daily to live; and therefore look upon every day as lost that does not help forward both this death and this life in you. Casting yourself with a broken heart at the feet of the Divine Mercy, desire nothing but that every moment of your life may be given to God, and pray from the bottom of your heart that the seed of eternity, the spark of life that had so long been smothered under earthly rubbish, might breathe and come to life in you."
Let us take hold of the central thought here that, to make way for the immediate and continual operation of God in our souls, we need, in the power of the Holy Spirit, absolutely to renounce self, and yield our whole being for God to dwell and work in. The universal mortification and self-denial is indispensable if God's redeeming love is to display its power and shed forth all its blessing. Let us cast ourselves with a broken heart at the feet of the Divine mercy, and desire nothing but that every moment of our life may be given to God.
