acrifice_. The
chief thing in all of our Lord's life, clear from Bethlehem to Calvary and
the tomb, was sacrifice. It runs ever throughout; it finds its tremendous
climax in the cross. And the word to put in here in quietest tone--the
quietest is tensest, and goes in deepest--the word is this: _Following
means sacrifice_. It means sacrifice as really for the follower as for the
Lone Man ahead.

That word "sacrifice" has practically been dropped out of the dictionary
of the Christian Church of the western world. It has not been wholly lost.
There is much real sacrifice, no doubt, under the surface. But, in the
main, it is one of the lost words in our generation of the Church. We are
rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing that we cannot
provide by the lavish use of money; so we think. And the loss of that word
explains the loss from our working dictionaries of another word, _power_.
For the two words always go together.

But please note what sacrifice means. For we may get confused in the use
of words, and like the Hebrews in Isaiah's day call things by the wrong
names.[83] Sacrifice does not merely mean suffering, though there may be
much suffering included in it. But there may be suffering where there is
no sacrifice. It does not mean privation, though there may be real painful
privation in it. But again there may be much privation and pain without
any element of sacrifice entering in.

The heart of sacrifice is that it is voluntary, and that it really costs
you something. It is something that would not come to you unless you
decide to let it come. It is wholly within your power to keep it away, and
it brings with it real pain or cost of some kind. Sacrifice means doing
something, or doing without something, that so help may come to another,
even though it costs you some real personal suffering of spirit, or of
body, or both, or lack of what you should have and would enjoy.

And please note that sacrifice is _not_ the key-note of the "Follow Me"
life. We are not to seek for sacrifice. Perhaps that is quite a needless
remark. We are not likely to seek for it. No one loves a cross any more
than did Peter, when he had the hardiness to rebuke his Master.[84] And
yet we remember those earnest souls in earlier times, who shut themselves
up behind monastic walls, and inflicted pain upon themselves by privation
and by bodily self-infliction. And we cannot help admiring their
earnestness and saintliness, even