Read Luke 9:23-24
23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it,but whoever loses their life for me will save it. (NIV)
Whenever we read the phrase ‘self-denial’ we may immediately conjure up pictures of cowering in some gloomy corner muttering miserable words about how worthless we are and how we are not under any circumstances to experience any pleasures that may come the way of people.
That is a lie from the father of lies. Jesus wants us to deny ourselves not in order to embrace misery but to embrace a better sort of life. Paradoxically,when we deny ourselves we discover our best selves. Because the ‘self’ we are denying is not our essential personality designed by our Maker. It is the egotistic self-seeking ‘self’ which causes us to become distorted in the pursuit of selfish gratification.
We embrace our true God-created selves when we put aside selfish ambition. Ego gets in the way of the flowering of our best selves. That is why Jesus says the only way to save or nourish our life is to forgo the attitude which believes we are at the centre of the universe. We profit from denying,we live through dying,we gain through losing.
Blessings
David Reay
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