Denying Self; ‘You Must”
Joe Terrell

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. ~Luke 9:23

There are many hard choices to be made in following the Lord Jesus. They are hard because they involve giving up some things which are very precious to us. The Lord said that such choices may extend so far as to involve a loss of one’s family ties, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10.37,38) Why would our Lord have said such a thing were it not that following Him might involve having to make a choice between Him and the people we love?

But the difficulty of all those hard choices is summed in one very hard choice: a man must deny himself. If one is able to deny his own self, then it will be relatively easy to deny all the other things in this life which might set themselves up as a rival to Christ for our affections. But, it is quite impossible for a man to deny himself by a simple act of choice. There is only one thing that can make a man deny himself, and that is for him to find something he counts to be better and more important than himself. Many religions have self-denial as a virtue, and men will abase and abuse themselves in horrible ways in the name of their religion. But, in most cases, such self-denial is merely a means to an end, a work done in order to receive some reward. But in the case of the believer, he denies himself because he has found something greater – the Lord Jesus. He replaces self with Christ. With his eyes full of Christ, all the things of self fade away, and to deny self seems no great loss. Saul of Tarsus denied himself and all things pertaining to himself when and only when the glory of Christ was revealed to him. Then he cast off all those things which pertained to himself. And does he mourn the loss of those things? !--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->No, he calls them dung and a liability. !--[endif]-->

No amount of self denial will enable you to see the glory of Christ and make you follow him. But, if you ever see the glory of Christ, you WILL deny yourself, and GLADLY take up your cross and follow Him.