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If you know Jesus as savior and Lord, you are among the most blessed people on earth. What a blessing it is to have this salvation and forgiveness of sins, and it comes to us freely by grace. While our salvation is free, Jesus calls us to take up our cross, to deny ourselves and to follow him.
Have you ever wondered:
How can salvation be offered to us as a free gift of God, yet discipleship have a great cost? Consider this analogy:
Suppose you have a desire to climb Mount Everest. Suppose a wealthy businessman heard of your desire and offered to pay for the entire expedition. It costs about $70,000 to do it. He would buy all the expensive clothing and gear; he would pay for your transportation, the guides, and the training. It’s totally free for you in terms of financial cost. But if you accept his free offer, you have just committed myself to months of difficult training and arduous effort. It could even cost me my very life, because many good climbers die trying to climb Mount Everest. It is free and yet very costly.
Jesus said in Mark 8:34 - “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’”
Notice that Jesus does not say, "Let him hate himself." He is not asking us to deny our basic humanity, our personhood. The word, "deny" means to "disavow any connection with something, to state that you are not connected in any way."
Denying self means that we renounce our natural feelings about ourselves, our right to ourselves, our right to run our own lives. We are to deny that we own ourselves. We do not have the final right to decide how we are going to live.
This is where things get challenging for us….because the one thing that we, as human beings, value and covet and protect above anything else is the right to make decisions for ourselves.
Denying self means I stop thinking I’m always right, I stop living in my own power and I refuse to pursue my own pleasures because I no longer belong to myself.
We see this in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
What is Paul saying? He’s saying I must give up the right to run my own life because I no longer own my own life. I’ve been bought with the blood of Christ and I now belong to Him.
If you are going to follow Jesus, you no longer own yourself. He has ultimate rights; he has Lordship of your life. We surrender that right to Jesus.
Jesus is saying, “Let him give up his rights to run his life, let him submit himself to my leadership, to my Lordship." And this is fundamental to all discipleship. There can be no discipleship apart from it.”
The question that rises from our heart is: why? Why would we do this? Why would we deny ourselves? Why would we surrender all to Christ?
He is worthy that we would do so. He went to the cross. He took our place. He purchased our salvation.
Our surrender to Christ is our natural response to Christ. What else could we give him but ourselves?
True joy and freedom is found in giving ourselves to God. It goes against our natural thinking, but millions of people can testify to the joy found in giving our complete lives to Christ.
Today’s Challenge: Take time to pray and ask God if there is an area of your life in which you have withheld your surrender. I’m confident the Holy Spirit will speak to your heart. As you deny yourself, you will experience the joy that comes from giving our lives to Christ.
