you make the venture?

"Out of my shameful failure and loss,
Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
Into the glorious gain of Thy cross,
Jesus, I come to Thee;
Out of the depths of ruin untold,
Into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,
Ever hereafter Thy face to behold,
Jesus, I come to Thee."

IV

LOVE'S LONGING--PAUL

_Philippians 3:10_

"That I may know . . . the fellowship of His sufferings." Weymouth
gives this translation: "I long to share His sufferings." Paul is here
leading us into the very innermost sanctuary of his heart. He is
revealing to us the supreme passion of his life. He is letting us know
what is his one great ambition. "I long," he says. And knowing what a
mighty man he was we lean eagerly forward that we may hear the word
that comes from his lips. For we are keen to know what is the dearest
desire of this brave heart.

And as we listen this is the perplexing word that comes to us: "I long
to share in His sufferings." How startlingly strange that longing is.
We are half ready to wonder if we have heard aright. And when we
realize that we have, we instinctively think of the words of the Roman
governor, Festus: "Paul, thou art beside thyself. Much learning doth
make thee mad." We wonder if Festus was not right after all. Isn't
Paul a bit insane?

"I long to share in His suffering." It sounds like madness to many of
us because it is so foreign to our own deepest desires. Had Paul said,
"I long for a place of honor; I long that my presence should elicit the
applause of the world and call forth the crowns of the world"; had he
said this, we could easily have understood him. Had he expressed a
longing for a place in the hall of fame, had he said, "My one desire is
that the world shall keep sacred my memory," he would have been easily
understood by us. We would have said "This is very natural and very
human." But that is not what he says. This is his strange language:
"I long to share in Christ's sufferings."

Had Paul said that he longed to escape pain and anguish and sorrow we
might also have understood him. Had he said, "I long to escape the
penalty of sin even though I live in sin," many of us could have
appreciated this desire. For there are always those who, while they do
not yearn especially for deliverance from sin, do yearn to be saved
from its penalty. They do not desire to be saved from the sowing of
tares, but they want to be saved from the re