Deny Yourself

Then said Jesus unto His disciples, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” 

Matthew 16:24

It’s that time of year again. The cold and rain of winter have begun to give way (at least periodically) to the bright, warm rays of spring-almost-turned-summer, the birds once again fill the air with their symphony of chirps and trills, and bright new flowers and leaves have burst out of their winter dormancy. As much as I love the rain, the sporadic appearances of the sun and the warming temperatures make me feel like I, too, am coming out of some sort of dormancy.

Perhaps, like me, you struggle with low energy during the winter months. This usually comes with allergy/sinus trouble from the weather, and it’s not till the end of May that I begin to feel close to “normal” again. What does that have to do with the concept of denying yourself?

Everything.

You see, throughout those months of low energy and never quite feeling well, I tend to get into a rut of eating more, while also eating less nutritiously.

That, combined with the fact that I struggle to do anything even loosely resembling exercise during the schoolyear, means that come springtime, I have a choice: either get my eating under control (and exercise a little), or buy new clothes for the last few weeks of school.

This might not seem like a spiritual decision, but the Holy Spirit has been teaching me in recent years that it truly is. When I eat more than my body needs, I train my body to want more and more, to be greedy for what it really doesn’t need. When I give in and eat out of boredom or for comfort, I train my heart to seek satisfaction in something other than God.

This is how the issue of food has become a spiritual issue for me. Instead of giving in and buying new clothes, I learn again the lesson of self-denial.

“And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” (1 Corinthians 9:25-27)  

Paul here writes through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that if we are to strive for the “incorruptible crown” of faithfulness in sharing the gospel, we must be temperate “in all things.” Notice that he doesn’t say “in all spiritual things.” Instead, he makes the point that, just as an athlete practices self-denial, so ought we, but to a greater and all-encompassing extent.

Whatever area it might be in which you tend to lack self-discipline, that is an area you must learn to “keep under” if you are to serve Christ well. Romans 6:16 helpfully reminds us,

“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”

This matter of self-discipline and self-denial is crucial to our effectiveness for Christ as well as our own personal relationship with Him. This year it took longer for me to yield to the Holy Spirit’s quiet call to deny myself and get my eating under control, and in those first few days of retraining my body to be satisfied with “enough,” I was reminded again of how strong a pull our flesh has once it has been given a foothold.

Not only does the practice of self-denial help my body be healthy and my flesh be brought into submission, it also helps arm me for other conflicts with the flesh. Victories of self-denial in such visible, tangible areas as food and exercise also help us gain confidence for spiritual struggles against our flesh in other areas, such as sinful thinking, discouragement, and faithfulness to obey God in whatever other area of life we find hard to handle.

Self-denial, however, is not a matter of mere willpower. Temperance, or self-control, is a fruit of the Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit’s power to enable us to deny ourselves and gain the victory over sin which Christ has already won on our behalf. Self-denial is not about self, but about God. It is the simple decision to say “no” to self so that we can say “yes” to God.

So what about you? How is the Holy Spirit prompting you to deny yourself in obedience to Him today?

“And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

(2 Peter 1:5-8)