If this is to be the case, the soul-life must be rejected. This is a cross. Obedience to Christ and disregard of human sentiment cause the believer's natural love to feel grief and pain. Therefore, such grief and pain become the believer's practical cross, enabling him through such a willingness to deny the self, to lose the soul-life related to the activity in the realm of love. Oftentimes, to forsake one's loved one is heart-breaking and soul-hurting. Many tears and sighings and much unspeakable sadness are produced because of the loss of a loved one. All these bring sufferings to our life. How unwilling is our soul to deny our loved ones for the Lord's sake! But it is thus by putting the soul to death—being willing to die—that the believers are able to break away from the soul's power. Such a loss of the soul-life's natural love on the cross enables the soul-life to let the Holy Spirit pour God's love into its heart before God, thus causing all the soul's love to be through God and in God.

Here we need to take note that this soul-life, humanly speaking, is legitimate and natural to possess; it is not filthy like sins. Is not the love that has been mentioned commonly shared by all men? Is it not legitimate to have the affection which loves one's household? However, the Lord's calling is for us to overcome the natural and, for God's sake, to renounce even man's legitimate right and be blended with God. God wants us to love Him more than Abraham loved Isaac. Although the soul-life was given to man by the Lord of creation, God desires that men (if willing) not live according to this life. The worldly man cannot apprehend God's desire. But when a believer advances gradually and loses himself in God's life, he will know God's desire. Who can understand that God, having given Isaac to Abraham, also wanted him to give up Isaac? But those who know the heart of God do not want to stop at God's natural gifts; rather, they desire to rest in the God who gives the gift. God's purpose is that we would be attached only to Him, not to any persons, things, or matters—although these persons, things, or matters may have been given by God Himself.

Christians are very willing to leave the Ur of Chaldea, but they seldom see the importance of offering on Mount Moriah what God has given. This is one of the deeper lessons of faith. This is a lesson of entering into the life of God and being united with God. What God wants from His children is that they should forsake all and become His completely. They must not only remove those things which they themselves realize and consider to be harmful, but they must also deliver their most legitimate human living, such as affection, to the cross and follow the direction of the Holy Spirit.

What our Lord wants is very meaningful because man's affection is a function which is very difficult to control. Unless the believer hands over this affection to the cross and is willing to lose it in death, he will be greatly hindered in the spiritual life. Since human affairs often change, human affection is also influenced. When the faculty of affection is stimulated, the whole being of the believer very easily loses its spiritual normality. A believer who is soulish in this part will often be disturbed and lose the peace in his spirit. Sorrow, grief, lament, and tears are the usual results of affection. If the Lord cannot have the first place in the matter of affection, it is hard for Him to take charge in other things. This is a test of spirituality as well as a measure of its degree. Therefore, we should hate our own life and not let it have any opportunity for free activity in exercising human love. The Lord's demand and our natural intention are completely opposite. What we love we must now hate. Not only must we hate what we love, but we must also hate that faculty from which the love issues, that is, our soul-life. This then is the way toward spirituality. If we truly take up the cross in such a way, it will prevent the soulish affection from controlling and influencing the spirit and will enable us to love others by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is precisely how the Lord Jesus treated His family when He was on the earth.