To Deny Self

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

TO DENY SELF

Luke 9:23-27

23 Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? 26 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. 27 I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God." 

NIV

These words of Jesus are a lot to take in and we may have to spend more then one look at them. The first that we must consider is taking up our cross daily and following him. Taking up our cross daily requires denying ourselves. To deny ourselves is about saying no to the passions of the flesh. This is not our daily needs to eat and drink, or to have a place to live, or some form of transportation to get to our work, which is this daily life we all must endure at some level. However, it is the passions of sin which Jesus it speaking about, and perhaps the passions this world has to offer in the physical sense. Jesus made it clear that we cannot serve two masters, God and money. We either have Almighty God as our master, or we serve the almighty dollar. This could also be part of denying ourselves. We must look at all aspects of what would be considered not to deny ourselves. It is possible each one of us may have some different area in life that we must deny in order to take up our cross and follow Jesus. However, it is centered on the cross, where Jesus denied himself, giving his life to be the ransom for our sins. If we are taking up our cross, it involves offering ourselves as a living sacrifice to God.  This means that we serve God rather then serve ourselves, which again means we cannot serve both or two masters, God and self. This does not mean we cannot enjoy a good cup of coffee, or the sweet taste of good chocolate, or the savory taste of a perfect filet mignon. But to say yes to every sinful thought or behavior would mean trying to live for all the passions of the flesh, and that would not be living for God, or even coming close to any cross to pick up and follow Jesus. Yet, Jesus is making the point of gaining the whole world, which would imply to us that he is speaking again about the love of money, which we know is the root of all evil. Not the money itself, for we all need some amount of it to buy food, clothing, housing, etc. However, when we are obsessed with gaining as much as we can, or building bigger barns to store it in so we can sit back, relaxing, taking life easy, then we could be in danger of having some sort of love affair with money, which is the world. Let us consider this more as we continue to explore all the avenues connected with taking up our cross, to deny ourselves.