Matthew 16:24 Part I: Deny Yourself
Matthew 16:24 - “Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wants to follow after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.’”
In this passage, Jesus calls His people to do 3 things if they want to be true followers of Christ:
Deny yourself
Take up your cross
Follow Jesus
Over the next few weeks, the blog will focus on each of these and how to practically live them out as believers.
Today’s society is riddled with mottos of “do what you want”, “you only live once”, and “you can be whatever you want to be”. People often quote these and similar sayings to themselves to get over whatever obstacles they may be facing in life. While these quotes do not seem particularly harmful, they can lead the mind of a believer astray from what the Lord Jesus has called us to.
In Matthew 16:24, Jesus calls His followers to “deny” themselves. Much different from what society teaches us, Jesus calls us to disown and oppose ourselves - to say “no” to our meager human concerns and consider only the concerns of God.
Like most of what the Lord calls us to, this practice of self-denial does not come naturally to us. Our flesh begs us to give in to the thoughts and inevitable actions of the “do what you want” philosophy, although we know we are called to fight against the sins of our flesh. The apostle Paul speaks to this in his letter to the Romans: “For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do,” (Romans 7:19). It is human inclination to sin - to “not practice what [we] want to do, but [we] do what [we] hate,” (Romans 7:15b).
When Jesus calls us to deny ourselves in Matthew 16:24, He is calling us to reject any self-centered thinking so that we may devote ourselves exclusively to following Jesus. Effective self-denial can be described as the act of being WILLING to mentally give up all that we THINK we own and focus only on the work of His Kingdom. Jesus wants us to die to ourselves by putting aside self-righteousness, self-indulgence, and everything that “belongs” to us - our desires, our ambitions, our thoughts, our dreams, and our possessions.
The Dictionary of Biblical Themes defines “self-denial” as this: “the willingness to deny oneself possessions or status, in order to grow in holiness and commitment to God.” We must take the same mindset of Paul when he says in Philippians 3:7-8, “but everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them filth, so that I may gain Christ…” All things that we own, all of our awards, all of our accolades should be considered filth in light of gaining Jesus Christ. We should desire a relationship with Jesus more than we desire anything else in this world.
So how can we practically live out Jesus’ calling to deny ourselves - to forget all that we own, all that we want? First of all, it is important to know that this practice of self-denial is not a one-time thing. We must make the conscious decision to deny ourselves every moment of every day. Every thought you think or action you take should provoke the question: “does this glorify God?” The center of our world should not include ourselves but only Jesus.
We can live this out in the following ways:
Fasting
Whether fasting from food or from some other worldly activity, setting our minds on Jesus as our only provider relinquishes any control we thought we had over our own lives and gives that control over to Him
Prayer
Communication with the Father with Jesus as our mediator is one of the best ways to deny our flesh from taking over our minds and begging us to sin
Living modestly (as opposed to indulging in excessive luxury)
Our flesh lives in a constant state of “instant gratification”. We want what we want when we want it. When we live modestly, we live within our means and do not give in to the world’s standards of living a lavish lifestyle.
Love and esteem brothers and sisters in Christ
Putting others before ourselves will always humble us and give us something more to live for besides boasting about our own work and ability.
Serving in the body of Christ - the Church
Building up the Kingdom of God here on earth is another way to shut our own desires down and live only for the concerns of God.
“When you are willing to sacrifice time, energy, rights, position, reputation, privileges, comforts, and even your very life for the sake of Christ, you exemplify what it means to deny yourself,” (GotQuestions.org).
Galatians 5:24: “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
