Skip to main content

 DENY YOURSELF


Luke 9:23
Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after me. Let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”

In the days of Jesus’ earthy mission, if you saw someone carrying a cross surrounded by Roman soldiers, you knew that person was not coming back. Death was assured. Jesus knew He was to be crucified and rise again. He was telling His followers, that means us, too, that we are to be willing to have earthly life taken from us for His and the Gospel’s sake.

The other aspect of His Words, “Let him deny himself…” is just as profound and risky. Denying myself, at its heart, means that I must die daily to the illusion that I can fix myself. My faith depends on Jesus Christ from start to finish. Apart from Him, there is no hope for humanity to become all God created us to know. Salvation is of the Lord alone.

Human beings have been trying to reverse the consequences of Adam’s fall ever sin he fell from grace in Eden. To follow Jesus, though, you must embrace the reality that you can never save, restore, or reverse your condition of being spiritually dead by any personal means whatsoever. Following Jesus entails dying to one’s old way of living and thinking and to begin to live a new life and to think with a Holy Spirit renewed mind. People will say, “Well that just the way I was born.” True. But that is why Jesus Christ made it clear that you must be born again. You must let the old way be crucified, die, and be buried never to be returned to as a way of living. That New Birth is something God does in the Holy Spirit’s power. God gives us resurrection Life. We are born into a new Kingdom that does not have us “assuming the throne” of our lives.

Today, take up the cross, the truth that you can never change yourself. You can never become your best self apart from letting the old, ingrained ways of thinking and doing die, denying any alternative to truly being made whole but Jesus Christ alone. Following Jesus means that you will do as He does and say what He says. Following Him means letting Him live Life both in you and through you.

Today, agree with God that you will never be your own salvation. Let that “reasonable” lie be crucified. Let it die, never to be relied upon again. By the Holy Spirit, put to death the “deeds of the flesh” that insidious, broken system that can never restore your soul. Let Jesus Christ rule in all you are. Follow Him; He will give you the power to do just that.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

 HIS POWER...HIS PROMISE Helping people walk in the Spirit the devotional below is seminal! The devotion below is today from Oswald Chambers. I makes me think of some I have known that have assumed that the Lord doesn’t want them empowered by the Holy Spirit or that He won’t manifest Himself in them because they have reasoned otherwise. Given ministry opportunities to have the Holy Spirit confirm the Word of God with demonstration of the Holy Spirit and power, they rely on how they feel, their experience thus far and not on the reality that the will of God in mission and ministry is either done in the Holy Spirit’s Power or not at all. Our capacity to do what Jesus does has nothing to do with our imagined capacity, but upon the indwelling power of God through is. Now to Him who is able to do far above and beyond what we could ever imagine or think, by His power at work in us now, to Him be glory…   Matthew 25:14-30 Jesus told the parable of the bags of gold as a warning ...
Post a Comment
Read more
 HE IS RISEN! IT IS FINISHED! After the Israelites had passed through the Red Sea by God opening the way for them to be saved, the whole of Pharoah's army, his horsemen and chariots pursued God's people into the opened way. Once they were all in, the waters flowed back into their place with suddenness and fury. Not one of the enemies survived. All perished in those waters. When Jesus Christ hung on the cross, all that sin contained, the full measure of the rebellion of mankind for all time, all the wickedness that was ever in human hearts were absorbed into the Lamb of God as He died our death, received our just judgement from God for all time, taking all that sin and death contained. In Him, sin and death died once and for all. They were overwhelmed, covered and drowned in the sea of His precious blood, poured out for the sin of the whole world. Not one enemy remained alive, all were stripped of their power to hold us in slavery to sin any longer. All their weapons were confis...
Post a Comment
Read more
 CONVICTION When the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, He doesn't ask us to make it right. We can never add to what Jesus Christ has already done on the cross to deal with the totality of our sin. The Holy Spirit asks us to accept the truth, turn from sin and turn to the Lord. Then He will make it right. Remember Who our faith depends on from start to finish, that salvation is of the Lord alone. Laying aside every hindering weight and the sin that so easily trips us up (different for everyone), we are to run the race He has given us to run with perseverance, fixing our eyes on Jesus. He is the One upon Whom our faith depends on from start to finish. He will never run out of eyesight any more that a good shepherd would go ahead of the sheep he was leading where they couldn't see to follow. Hebrews 12:1-2 "Surrounded then as we are by a great cloud of witness to the life of faith, let us strip off everything that hinders us, as well as the sin which dogs our feet, and let us r...
Post a Comment
Read more