Mark 8:34-38
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “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 and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”
The number one obstacle that keeps us from being all that God has created us to be is ourselves. Self-sufficient and self-centered living keeps us from finding our sufficiency in Christ. To deny ourselves is to deny self-rule. Dying to self is the primary battle of life. The flesh scrambles for the throne and wants to play God, but Jesus is already on the throne and He graciously offeres to share it.
The cross we pick up is the cross of Christ. His cross has provided forgiveness for what we have done and deliverance from what we were. We are forgiven because He died in our place’ we are delivered because we have died with Him. Seeking to overcome self by self-effort is futile. Self will never cast out self, because an independent self that is motivated by the flesh still wants to rule. When we follow Christ, the Holy Spirit will lead us down the path of death to self-rule. “For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal body” (2 Cor. 4:11). Denying ourselves, picking our cross daily and following Jesus may sound like a dismal path to take, but it most assuredly isn’t for the following three reasons:
First, you are sacrificing the lower life to gain the higher life. If you want to save your natural life (i.e., finding your identity and sense of worth in positions, titles, accomplishments and possessions, and seeking only worldly well being), you will lose it. You may have some of it for a time, but not for eternity. Furthermore, efforts to possess temporal blessings keep you from pursuing what you could have in Christ. If you aim for this world, that is all you will get, and only for a short time. Aim for the next world, heaven, and you get it – plus the benefits of knowing Christ now.
Second, you are sacrificing the pleasure of things to gain the pleasures of life. What would you accept in exchange for the fruit of the Spirit in your life? What material possession, what amount of money, what man-made position or title would you exchange for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? The lie of this world is that temporal possessions will give us love, joy, peace and the like, but they can’t. For some deceptive reason, we strive to be happy as animals instead of being blessed as children of God.
Third, you are sacrificing the temporal to gain the eternal. One of the great signs of spiritual maturity is the ability to postpone rewards. Look at the example of Moses. “He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward” (Heb. 11:25-26).
We may encounter some hardships in following Christ, but “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:17). Making Jesus the Lord of our lives also makes Him the Lord of our problems. As Lord, He assumes responsibility for what we could never fulfill ourselves. Heaven is where we say to God, “Thy will be done.” Hell is where God says to us, “Thy will be done.”
Thought of the day: What does it mean to deny yourself?
