Let Him Deny Himself

I have no problem with anything the Faithful Messenger said in this thread.  His interpretation is not unreasonable.

The problem, of course, is what is NOT said.  When we lift the words of the Lord Jesus Christ from the gospels and present them in isolation, a simplicity of fulfillment may appear.

The Lord Jesus Christ said if anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. 

That is what we are to do. 

Understood.

But can we, in good conscience, just leave it there?

Perhaps I am too great a sinner.  But I cannot just leave it there.

It is, of course, an undeniable fact the overwhelming majority of persons alive, and persons who ever lived, denied themselves for most of their waking lives.  

The sad-sack who wakes up every weekday morning and reports to a job he detests has denied himself.  This same sad-sack denies himself again later in the same day when he denies himself a violent response to a superior’s disrespect.

There are, of course, plentiful examples of more fleshly denials from every person who lives or ever lived.  Lusts denied, whether for fornications or intoxications or more niche perversions.

The vast majority of the time the vast majority of humanity has denied itself.  

The Lord Jesus Christ said if anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.  

The briefest look at the ugly, violent, debased human history tells us this instruction from the Lord Jesus Christ has not been followed.  And this, then, tells us two further things:

It takes only a very tiny amount of selfishness (the act of not denying yourself) to make a hell on earth, and

It must not be easy to deny yourself.  The proof is that the overwhelming majority of people do try to deny themselves.  The will is there.** 

But the created being will fail and fail and fail again.  He/she/they may go a few minutes, a few hours, even a day, two days, denying themselves, but the limitations of a created being are difficult to overcome.

The created being is throw into an anti-Christ system which automatically demands self-denial, the created being must serve the will the rulers of the system, not themselves.  Additionally the created being is subject to the desires within their own flesh and their own psyche which they have no understanding of how to control, let alone the understanding the genesis of those desires.  Invariably the created being will seek gratification of the flesh or the mind.  And sometimes this failure to deny self is due 100% to the created being’s selfishness.  But we cannot deny that at other times, the created being is subject to external forces, both environmental and supernatural, that create stresses or temptations that influence their selfishness, to whatever degree.

If it were easy to deny self, the world would be a pretty place.  The overwhelming majority of people will do the easy thing.  

I have no problem with anything the Faithful Messenger said in his X thread.  His interpretation is not unreasonable.

The problem, of course, is what is NOT said.  When we lift the words of the Lord Jesus Christ from the gospels and present them in isolation, a simplicity of fulfillment may appear.

In the case of self-denial, I feel compelled to also present the following words of the Lord Jesus Christ:

Then Peter having come near to Him, said, `Sir, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him -- till seven times?'  Jesus saith to him, I do not say to thee till seven times, but till seventy times seven.

Sin is selfishness. Sin is doing what you want.  Sin is not denying yourself.  If denying yourself were a simple matter, even a realistic matter for the created being, our Lord Jesus Christ would not have said forgive your brother seventy times seven.

Every day on earth is a grim struggle against self.  The worst people imaginable struggled against self.  Helpless slaves to self. 

The greatest lesson in picking up the Cross daily, the greatest lesson for anyone ‘who would come after’ Jesus is in failure.  Our daily sin is our reminder how helpless, pathetic and weak we created beings are.  When we act selfishly, when we refuse to deny ourselves, when we sin, in the shameful aftermath of that sin we recognize our absolute need for the Lord Jesus Christ’s atoning work.  

Yes, we ought to deny ourselves.  

Nobody has successfully done it, except the Lord Jesus Christ.

In our unsuccessful struggle we fully recognize the Lord Jesus Christ’s victory.

Jesus, thank you for being a friend to this sinner. Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling.

**Even Bible ‘heroes’ such as Paul repeatedly failed in denying self, and in matters as trivial as to who the slave Onesimus should serve. Paul’s passive-aggressive wheedling of Philemon is an embarrassingly selfish act!