Self Denial

Luke 9:23-24: "The he (Jesus) said to them all: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.'"

Inserted between the calling and empowerment of the disciples by Jesus to ministry and their subsequent failures at demonstrating the power of God because of their self-aggrandizement was a teaching of Jesus about discipleship. Jesus had been praying in a quiet place with His disciples; then He turned to the disciples and asked them who the people thought He was. When Peter rightfully identified Jesus as the Anointed One of God, Jesus then explained the purpose of His first advent, namely to deny Himself by submitting to the will of God to be killed and raised to life for the redemption of mankind.

Then Jesus looked at His disciples and explained to them that if they were to be His disciples, they would have to deny any desire for self-adulation. They must "lose" themselves by yielding the entirety of their lives to Jesus as Lord. To choose to elevate one's "self" first was to forfeit the blessedness of God and His eternal grace.

Charles Finney, the great revivalist of the nineteenth century who often spoke of surrender to Christ as Lord, said it well: "Jesus Christ exercised self-denial to save sinners. So has God the Father exercised self-denial in giving his Son to die for us, and in sparing us, and in bearing with our perverseness. The Holy Ghost exercises self-denial in condescending to strive with such unholy beings to bring them to God. The angels exercise self-denial, in watching over this world. The apostles planted the Christian religion among the nations by the exercise of self-denial. And are we to think to being religious without any self-denial? Are we to call ourselves Christians, the followers of Christ, the temples of the Holy Ghosts, and to claim fellowship with the apostles, when we have never deprived ourselves of any thing that would promote our personal enjoyment for the sake of promoting Christ's kingdom? . . . . unless (you) are willing to lay yourself out for God and ready to sacrifice life and every thing else for Christ, you have not the spirit of Christ, and are none of his." Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1960), pg. 414.

We must remember that a personal relationship with Christ necessitates a yielding to Him as Lord. To seek association with Christ simply for the benefits of grace, with no intention of surrender to Him as Lord is no relationship at all. God is not simply a cosmic bellhop who is our remedy when we face difficulties in this life and who we expect to give us heaven simply because we want it. We must submit to Him as our Master; and as His servants, we forsake any self-seeking passions that would attempt to reassert a quest for personal lordship. When we are surrendered to Christ, our consumption is in obeying Him as Lord. We are driven by the desire to follow Him, and in the process we deny ourselves. What is wonderful is the joy that obedience to Christ brings to our souls; in fact, Jesus has told us that when we yoke ourselves to obedience to His will, we will find fulfillment in life, for His "yoke is easy and (His) burden is light" (Matthew 11:30).