DENY YOURSELF

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
Matthew 16:24

What does Jesus mean when he says, “You must deny yourself?” Does he mean that we are to reach way down and run the extra mile when we do not feel it is possible, or perhaps deny ourselves an extra trip to the buffet bar? Maybe he is talking about rising early in the morning to pray, thus denying that extra hour of sleep we need. I believe all of these may be the end result of the interpretation of what it means to deny ourselves, but the truth is, men have done all of these things and never once done it with anything but natural strength.

If you really look at what is meant by taking up your cross, you will see that the invitation is to do the impossible. The cross meant absolute death—how is a dead man going to follow anyone? The answer is only by faith in the resurrection power of Jesus Christ: Jesus did not die alone, neither was he resurrected alone—He included us.

To deny ourselves therefore must mean that we have an attitude of complete dependency on the person of Jesus Christ; we must not lean on any supposed strength of our own. It means to recognize what we can and can not do. If I was to ask you to read Matthew 16:24, you would have no trouble doing so. However, if I was to ask you to tell and interpret the dream President Obama will have two years from now, you would “deny yourself” and claim it is impossible. If I was to ask you to float down a raging river, you could do that; if I asked you to make the raging river to flow UP a mountain, you would “deny yourself.”

When it comes to living a life pleasing to God, we must once and for all realize that it is ONLY in Christ living in us that this is possible! We must deny any self righteous attitude that allows us to think we can defy the scriptures that teach, that apart from him, we can do nothing. After all, it is much more possible to turn a raging river upstream than it is to live a spiritual life leaning on mere human strength. Jesus come live in me!!

MESSAGE OF THE CROSS

1 Corinthians 1:18 in the Amplified says, “ For the story and message of the cross is sheer absurdity and folly to those who are perishing and on their way to perdition, but to us who are being saved it is the [manifestation of] the power of God.

One of the messages of the cross is that an empty cross—He is no longer there—and an empty tomb, means that there can be no empty heart in a believer—He must be there in reality or it was all in vain.

The message of the cross is that the FATHER of Glory so loved the world—me—that he sent his ONLY begotten Son that I might truly experience his presence on a day to day, and hour by hour basis. I must experience the fact that God loves me greater than Jacob loved Benjamin, of which it is written, “His life is bound up in the lad’s life.” I must know that IN CHRIST, He loves me as He loved Jesus!!

The message of the cross is that of saving grace: God took things into his own hand. From its inception to its completion to its glorious outworking of resurrection life, it is all about God taking the first step toward man. After Jesus had risen from the dead, who approached whom? Did the disciples seek the Lord in great faith, or did the Lord seek the disciples knowing they had no faith?

He sought them. It must be the same with us or else, we to will demonstrate to the world that our God is dead. We must experience the same grace the apostles experienced if we are to walk in the power of the gospel. Jesus having made a way for us, must reveal himself to us by taking our hand and leading us every step of the way. This is how Peter, James, and Paul made it; it is the only way that we will make it.