“And he said to them all, if any man will come after me, let him Deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?”
Luke 9:23-25
Does anybody know the meaning of self-denial anymore?
Before we begin, I have a question for you: Have you heard messages on what it means to deny yourselves lately? You might have heard hundreds, or maybe thousands of messages coming from a church pulpit; you might have read many Christian books or articles, but most talk about yourself, about what are the benefits for you: your lifestyle, your health, your finances, etc., but not one message telling you that the gospel is all about self-denial.
Not one message telling you that, in order to do the will of God, you must die to yourself first, you must let go of the things of this earth. You pray for your neighbor? Good for you; you donate your money to charity? Excellent; you help someone in need from time to time?
All those things are good, but don’t the ungodly men do the same? Doing good deeds is fine, and you should, but most of us only give leftovers, as long as it doesn’t hurt us, we give to those in need, but what’s wrong with this picture? Many millionaires donate millions and millions to charity.
Does that mean that they will be saved because of that? I don’t think so; they will get their reward, I am sure of that, but this is far from doing the work of God. Let’s look at the way we were taught by our Lord Jesus Christ, what is it that really gets his approval?
“And he looked up and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And he said, of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.”
Luke 21:1-4
I know you have read this Bible passage many times; you may have heard many messages about this Poor Widow, but what do you really understand? These are the passages that we don’t want to read, we look the other way while we sweep them under the rug, isn’t it?
Our comfort and well-being are more important; it is so easy to share a quilt when you have an extra one to spare, but it is so hard to give your own quilt when there is only one. Anybody can do that, anybody can give leftovers, but it takes a real man, or woman of God, it takes a real believer to give from their own need.
These are the passages that get buried in the Bible, and we prefer not to read, or if we read them, we neglect them completely. The old widow, in the scriptures above, understood what it meant to deny herself, and the Lord saw her and approved of her deeds.
Now let me ask you something: Don’t we follow the same Lord? Isn’t he the reason of what we call: our belief? If that’s the case; aren’t we willing to follow his teachings today? Two thousand years might have gone by since the day that the old widow gave all that she had, but absolutely nothing has changed, has it?
The things of this world are not the main purpose of our existence, but we are constantly bombarded with messages and sermons about ourselves, about the benefits that we would get from God and his mercy, and yes, all that is necessary, and God wants us to have all the good things that life has to offer, but we have the message all wrong, we are taking the bull by the tail instead of taking it by its horn.
You are doing nothing if you are not surrendering all, you are wasting your time if you think that you can continue to play church without giving it all. Understand once and for all: “THE LOVE OF GOD IS ALL, OR NOTHING AT ALL”; God has only two temperatures: cold or hot; you cannot be lukewarm like the church of the Laodiceans:
“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; these things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”
Revelation 3:14-16
Either you are in or out, you must live by the Word of God, and you must die by the Word of God; you must breathe it; you must wake up in the morning and the first thing on your mind should be: What will I do for God today? What will I do for my neighbor? To whom will I bring peace and happiness today? While you are on this earth, work and play on this earth, but live by the Spirit, or else you’re just wasting your time.
To deny yourself is to live in the Spirit
The bottom line is that you live worried about yourself, and you take care of yourself first, and then you worry about everything else, but you are doing it wrong, it should be the other way around. This you do because of your lack of faith and understanding of the Spirit.
Living in the Spirit is the most amazing thing that you will experience, living denied to yourself is the greatest thing that will happen to you, but you need to understand first. Now, I know that this is so hard to do because surrendering all is so difficult when you feel that you don’t have the calling of God to do so.
The calling of God, I believe that we all have it, but because our earthly hearts, we hinder it from coming into our lives and do the work that we have been called to do. I want you now to understand something:
When you surrender all to the Lord and start to do his will, everything else will begin to happen, everything else will come your way by itself; by this, I don’t mean that you should go out and sell everything that you have, and go to a third world country to preach the gospel, unless that is what you have been called to do.
What I mean is that you have to surrender everything in your heart, and put God where he should be, that means, in the center of your life; you must give your family to him; your career; your belongings, and all your future plans, whatever they might be. It is not until then, that you will start to see miracles happening in your life; it is not until then, that you will see the wonders of the Lord working in your family and your finances.
But this time, the right way; not putting your life first, and then, the things that are eternal. We have been called to build treasures in heaven for a reason; don’t you think so? When you deny yourself, you will find inner peace; therefore, happiness; nothing else will matter because you have given it all up.
We often find ourselves working hard for our money, working hard for our relationships and worried about our health; we are so penetrated into our lives that we almost forget about the Lord.
Only on Sunday mornings we dedicate two, or three hours to him, but we go home feeling so empty inside. The sermons that we hear, and the prayers that we pray have become nothing but an uncomfortable routine; our heart is constantly restless and worried about the future that we cannot live in peace.
This cannot go on like this, you must understand that you have to let go, and begin to let God take control of your entire life, you must let go of everything, and surrender completely with no holdbacks. You need to understand church of God, you need to get real.
What are you doing? You’ve got it all backward. Up until this day, I still don’t comprehend what part of: “deny yourself” did we not understand? I still don’t understand where did we get lost on the way and began to walk in a different direction.
My beloved brethren, listen to the voice of the Lord today; you have been trying to build a house and have not been able to accomplish nothing because you are building without God as the leader. Remember what we were taught:
“Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.”
Psalms 127:1-2
Don’t listen to the garbage from T.V. preachers, these people are deceiving those who are called to serve the Lord and are taking them through the wrong path. On one of my future books, I will write about them because the people of God need to take a stand and not be quiet about the work of the devil. For now, let’s continue talking about you.
I know that there are two things going through your mind right now, you are either thinking that I am crazy talking about self-denial, or you are actually thinking on changing your life; either way, let me tell you something:
Only those who are called will understand these words, only those that are humble at heart will realize that this is the only way to the truth; you can do as you please; nevertheless, the truth will always prevail, but the truth is not easy to swallow because the message of our Lord Jesus Christ is not easy to take:
We cannot hide the light, nor sweep it under the carpet; sooner or later, we will come to our senses and understand that this world does not belong to us, this world belongs to the devil, and he will soon manifest himself, and only those who have the Spirit of the Lord in them will recognize his terrifying consequences.
“These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, this is a hard saying; who can hear it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them: Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”
John 6:59-63
Don’t do things because everybody follows that path, remember that strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life; and few there be that find it. You need to know what it means to deny yourself if you are to continue, we must set our sights on those things that are eternal.
But yet knowing that we have a promise; the Word of God is very clear: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, AND ALL THINGS SHALL BE ADDED UNTO YOU.” Is it so hard to understand? How far are we willing to go?
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