Denial

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." - Matthew 16:24-25

We can't truly follow Christ unless we are denying ourselves. 

In Galatians 2:20, the verse I shared in my last post, Paul, with all his heart, chooses Christ as the model that he is seeking to be like. He recognizes Christ's life as the perfect example of how he wants to live. He knows that in order to be anything like his Lord, he must deny his selfishness and seek to follow in the same steps, being even willing unto death. In doing so, he identifies himself completely with Christ. 

So we too, as followers of Christ, must join in the same actions of our Lord. We must deny ourselves and take up our cross and crucify our selfishness there. For without denying ourselves we forfeit the right for Christ to work through us. We have a sinful nature that only seeks ungodly things, so we must not give it control. For without denying our selfish strivances all we will be doing is just stacking up all these things that make us look spiritual, but all they've been is for our own benefit. All we've done is just built up our religiousness.

Often I lose focus and just go with what's easiest because sometimes it's really hard to deny myself. It's difficult to focus when I'm tired. But I must do what's hard and difficult. My soul's health is begging me to. When I deny my selfishness, I am closer to being truly human as God intended in the beginning and closer to being fully redeemed as I will be in the end.

Following Christ isn't easy sometimes because it involves me moving. It requires me choosing to inject actions of seeking Him into my every day.

It's what it means to be a real follower of Christ, to be seeking Him continually. For in seeking Christ I admit my dependence on Him, denying the lie that I can do any good on my own strength.

So to deny myself is to be in a growing relationship with Christ. It is to commune with Him on a daily basis, getting to know more and more of His heartbeat and learning to let our hearts beat more and more in tune with His. To deny myself is to pray the prayer Jesus told His disciples to pray: the "Lord's Prayer" in Matthew 6:9-15.

To deny ourselves is to admit that without His leading, we'll go the wrong direction.

If we would just look, we would see that He is fully there and ready, waiting for us to acknowledge Him and to embrace His love that seeks to teach and guide us in our day.

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money" - Matthew 6:24

If we're really called to love Jesus Christ above everything else, as He said in Matthew 10:37-38, we must choose who we're going to please. I think Jesus is saying that we can only hold our highest devotion for one thing. He is God and deserves our utmost. The Christian life is about full devotion. The Bible says that we should be fully devoted to things, like our family and friends, but our utmost devotion is to be held for the King of Kings. We are to regard the most love for Him.

I think Jesus' lesson in Matthew is totally Him looking out for our best interest. His commands aren't to keep us from enjoyment or fullfilment. His commands are for our enjoyment and fulfillment! When He says that the most important commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind; this isn't just something that is required of us as followers of Christ. It's not because God need's all those things from us. It's because God knows that our wholeness is dependent on our giving all of ourselves over to Him. He knows that we need as much of Him as possible if we are to stand strong and progress in our faith.

"We have a God who is jealous of other gods not because they threaten Him, but because they threaten us." - Dr. Bob Laurent

The shape and beat of one's heart is determined by the allegiance which rules it. Whatever one's utmost loyalty is to, that's what they will in some way resemble.

May we embrace His command to deny ourselves, for it is solely out of His immeasurable love for us that we might live a fulfilling life.