There are few things at which
people enact greater farces. J. R. Miller, Daily Bible Readings
in the Life of Christ, 1890 Then Jesus said to his disciples,
If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take
up his cross and follow me. Matthew 16, 24. There are few
things at which people enact greater farces than in their
feeble and foolish efforts at self-denial. Very few seem to
have the remotest conception of what self-denial is. One does
without meat on Fridays, eating fish instead, and thinks that
he has denied himself in a most commendable way. Another gives
up candy or a certain amusement for forty days in Lent, and is
proud of over his great self-denial. Others make themselves miserable
in various ways, inflicting pain, making useless and uncalled-for
sacrifices, as if God were somehow pleased when they suffer. But
none of these things constitute self-denial. There is no merit
or virtue in giving up anything, suffering any loss or pain, or
making any sacrifice, merely for its own sake. True self-denial
is the renouncing of self and the yielding of the whole life
to the will of Christ. It is self coming down from the
heart's throne, laying crown and scepter at the Master's feet,
and thenceforth submitting the whole life to His sway. True
self-denial is living not to please ourselves, not to advance
our own personal interests, but to please our Lord and do His
work. It is denying ourselves anything
which is sinful in His sight. It is the glad making of any
sacrifice which loyalty to Him requires. It is the giving up
of any pleasure or comfort for the good of others which the
living out of his gospel may demand. The essential thing is
that self gives way altogether to Christ as the purpose and
end of life. True self-denial, like all other
traits of Christlikeness, is unconscious of itself, We deny
ourselves when we follow Christ with joy and gladness, through
cost and danger and suffering, wherever He leads.