What is it to Deny One’s Self?

Matthew 16:24-26

24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? 

What does it mean to deny one’s self and take up one’s cross and follow Him?

Does it mean to deny the desires of one’s own heart for the desires of Christ’s?

 …denying one’s self popularity, power, and privilege for the sake of another’s salvation?

…that girl in the corner, with the disheveled hair and the hand-me-downs, the one people have thrown away, she’s lost, she’s lonely, she needs

…but it will cost you

…that co-worker who loses herself in alcohol on the weekends to anesthetize the skeletons in her closet, she’s lost, she’s lonely, she needs

…but it will cost you

…that homeless man on the median, the one that looks perfectly healthy and capable but lives in a cardboard hut, he’s lost, he’s lonely, he needs

…but it will cost you

…denying one’s self material, comfort, luxury that another might have sustenance?

…that starving child on the TV in that help the children commercial, the one that makes you change the channel, he’s hungry, he’s underprivileged, he needs

…but it will cost you

…that co-worker that got laid off instead of you last year, the one who’s going to have to foreclose, his family is hungry, hurt, and needs

…but it will cost you

…that food bank down the street, the one that feeds hundreds of families, it’s empty and broke, and the people it serves still have needs

…but it will cost you

…denying one’s self time, wealth, rest that another might have hope, peace, joy?

…your son, the one you bore with so much joy and pride with so many hopes, he’s a teen, deep down inside he misses spending more time with you, he’s growing up so fast and feels lost and lonely, he needs

…but it will cost you

…your daughter, the sparkle in your eye who used to dance around and invite you to tea parties, she’s a teen, she’s caught between feeling like a child and being treated like an object, she’s confused and lonely, she needs

…but it will cost you

…the church, the one you sit in weekly, the one that’s trying to meet the needs of its members and community but struggles to find servants willing to commit a tithe of their time,  it wants to do what’s right, but it needs

…and it will cost you

What will it cost you? 

It might cost you social status.

It might cost you friends

It might cost you a job

It might cost you money

It might cost you time

It might cost you luxury

It might cost you sleep

It might cost you coffee

It might cost you lunch

It might cost you cable

It might cost you blood

It might cost you marrow

It might cost you an organ

It might cost you a vacation

It’s easy to count our cost, but we seldom realize the investment.  Taking up one’s cross isn’t easy, but at least we don’t have to do it in the literal sense.  2000 years ago a man stood in a garden and counted the cost.  He spent tears and sweat of blood on the total.  But He didn’t stop there.  It cost Him a close friend who became His traitor.  It cost Him His friends as they fled for their safety.  It cost Him His humanity and His dignity as He was spat upon, beaten, bruised, falsely accused, judged and sentenced.  It cost Him His comfort, His body, His skin, His blood and great anguish as He was flogged and tortured.  It cost Him humiliation as He was mocked, ridiculed, and hung on a cross in front of His own family.  Finally, it cost Him His very life ALL TO INVEST IN YOU!

What dividends will that investment repay?  Will the investment be worth the cost?  The answer lies in you and me.  We can take our blessings, our talents, our gifts and invest them in the kingdom receiving a return in this life and the next beyond our dreams—described as joy that passes all understanding—or we can squander those blessings, those talents, and those gifts on ourselves receiving only what little return we can give ourselves. 

What words will we be greeted with by the man of the cross, “Well done my good and faithful servant,” or “You wicked and lazy slave!” (Matthew 25:14-30)? 

God’s love is certainly greater than our love of the world and our selfish contempt for His desire for our life, but it is His very love that refuses to leave us the way we are and seeks to help us break the chains of self into a life of taking up our cross and following Him.  And it is our response to that Love that drives us to long to hear those words, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”

James 2:14-26

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder. 20 Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren? 21 Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. 23 Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.