Luke 9:23-25 (NIV) 23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?
James 4:1-3, 5-10 (NIV) 1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
The value of self-denial has always been difficult, but it has been made more difficult by the increasing value our culture has put on self-fulfillment. The notion is that we should affirm ourselves. We should express ourselves, actualize ourselves and assert ourselves. The values of duty, obligation and self-sacrifice are seen as being repressive and a severe limit to our need to be free and expressive and full of satisfaction in life. So, for example, love as sacrifice or as subordination to another is seen as offensive, as unhealthy, and as an affront to common sense.
“Submit yourselves, then, to God,” James said, and that is what Jesus meant when He said we should deny ourselves and take up our Cross. And, here are some of the things we will need to do: resist the devil who tries to make us think that denying ourselves is groveling and derogatory; cleanse our minds of the clutter of wanting so many different things that we are left feeling strained and stressed; purify our hearts and focus our minds and hearts on what God wants for us.
And then James says God gives grace. God gives both the responsibilities that are ours and the wisdom to say “no” to those that are not. God gives us the pleasures we need. God gives the relationships and success that we need, and God gives the gift of orchestrating our inner desires and our whole lives so that everything finds its place and it just fits rights. When our lives have been touched by the love of God in Jesus, when we have discovered a small portion of God’s fierce commitment to us in Jesus, then submission to God becomes our most pressing need and our highest value.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope September 24, 1995
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell
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