And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” Jesus
The words of the Lord Jesus Christ above are well known, quoted often, but rarely thought deeply about. The question is simple enough: What does it mean to “deny” oneself for the sake of Christ? When we hear that we are to deny ourselves, we often think of the flesh. The problem is, that often when we say flesh, we are thinking in terms of sins of commission. That is to say, we think to deny ourselves is simply to not lust, or to not covet, or to not do something we know is sinful. By not doing those things we think erroneously we are denying ourselves. But what Jesus is saying goes far deeper into the wickedness of our hearts. What Jesus is actually talking about is not simply the denial of our fleshly appetites, but is really talking about the denial of our self-determination, and self-will. In other words, you and I have a terrible problem within our hearts and it starts with the plague of the possessive personal pronoun. What do I mean? How does this work out in everyday normal life? You see it in culture when people arrogantly declare, “This is MY body and I can do with it how I please!” It is manifested in the subtle thinking in the heart that we are the owners of our lives. It’s MY life, MY house, MY money, MY career, MY plan, MY wife, MY kids, MY church…and the list could go on and on. My dear friends, our hearts tend to default into a mode in which the wickedness of sin begins to whisper the eternal, damnable lie that we are the possessors and owners of our lives and everything in them. The result is living for the praise of men, for the building of our own kingdom, and we can do it all in the midst of tacking Jesus onto the facade of our lives and even feeling good about it! To follow Jesus is to realize the depth of our wickedness that seeks to say “Mine” of everything we get out hands on, and to turn and repent. To deny yourself is to lay down your self-determinate will, and submit to God’s determinate and perfect authority and will for your life. The end result is glory for God and not you. It results in a life that is submitted to the furtherance of the Kingdom of God, and not the furtherance of your kingdom. But you cannot have both.
C.S. Lewis puts it this way in The Screwtape Letters in which a higher demon is having a conversation with a demon in training about how to deceive people. The demon says this; “We have taught men to say ‘My God’ in a sense not really different from ‘My boots,’ meaning, ‘the God on whom I have a claim for my distinguished services and whom I exploit – the God I have done a corner in.’ And all the time the joke is that the word ‘Mine’ in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything. In the long run either our Father, or the Enemy will say ‘Mine’ of each thing that exists, and especially of each man. They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls, and their bodies really belong – certainly not to them.”
Dear friend, let us take heed in how we hear the eternal words of God! Let us be those who lay down our self-determinate will, and gladly take up our cross daily! Let us be those who truly live for the glory and praise of the Father as we seek to be more and more like Jesus who laid aside His heavenly glory, and submitted to the will of the Father for the establishment of His kingdom! Jesus help us be Yours, and yours alone!
Glory Be!
