Self-Denial

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” –Matthew 16:24

When people think of denying themselves, often what comes to mind amounts to giving up a luxury, much like one gives something up for Lent.  But in the above passage, Christ isn’t talking about denying ourselves some trivial (or even important) pleasure or comfort of life.  The cross of Christ is not the giving up of temporal pleasures.  Jesus did not die on a cross of fasting, and he does not burden us with the same.

In fact, Jesus says that his burden is “light” (Matthew 11:30).  The cross of Christ isn’t something he presses down on our backs…it’s something we pick up for ourselves so that we can follow in his footsteps.  The burden of that cross?  Identification with him.  We do not find ourselves nailed to a physical cross…that burden Christ bore for us.  Nor does Christ compel us to give up pleasures and live in monasteries like Buddhist monks.  True he commands us to reject sinful pleasures, but sinful pleasures always steal their joy from true pleasures we can only experience when we follow Christ.

So what is the burden of the cross we take up?  What must we deny ourselves in order to follow Christ?  Consider: it is in the very act of associating ourselves with Christ, of bearing the symbol and truth of his sacrifice in our lives, that we open ourselves to the scorn of the world.  “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” (John 15:20)  The burden of following Christ, a burden which requires self-denial on our part, is not a burden which God places on our shoulders to weigh us down, but a burden which the world offers us, persecution and scorn that is leveled at the believer for his insolence in rejecting its ways, refusing to indulge in and approve of its wickedness.  For this, pressure is placed on the believer to deny his savior, and by nature it is only in denying ourselves this false sense of comfort, approval and pride that the world offers to its own that we are able to follow Christ.  To refuse to deny ourselves in this regard is, then, to deny Christ, to drop the cross of identification with him, to turn our backs to him and to say “Enough of this, Jesus. Having your approval is no good to me if I cannot have the approval of the world.”