"Then Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.'"- Matthew 16:24-25 (NASB)
We all have a battle going on in side of us. It is a battle
of wills. It is a battle to see who is going to be on top. It is a war that
ultimately will decide our fate. The battle is messy, but in the end there will
only be one victor.
The battle is between our self and God.
Now, ultimately the one victor is God, but we still fight
valiantly for our own self to be secure. We fight for our own safety. We fight
in order to maintain control.
For some reason, God allows it. He allows us to think we
have control. He allows us to think we can actually be who we want to be and do
what we want to do in total disregard of what He wants from us and what He has
declared us to be.
The reality is, many of us will battle until the end and we
will discover God is the winner and we lose. Then, there will be the people who
will wave the surrender flag and recognize they are powerless against the
Creator of all.
I have been thinking heavily about this concept of self-sacrifice
lately. Jesus declared to His disciples that in order to follow Him we needed
to deny our self. The desires we have for ourselves might not match with the
desires God has for us and His will should be winning over ours anyway.
Yet, we find a way to declare our own strength. We say, “Well,
I know God says I should not hold grudges, but you know, I was wronged, so I
will hold this grudge until I get an apology!” or “God says I should love
everyone, but that person smells funny and lives in a poor neighborhood, so I
don’t think I can love them, but I’ll pray.”
You see, our selfishness causes us to think these twisted
thoughts. We justify our positions because of our well-being or personal
feelings with total neglect of who God has called us to be.
We make our own rules and regulations. We decide who gets
grace and who doesn’t. We decide what constitutes a sin and what doesn’t. We
make our decisions based on what feels good to us as opposed to what God
declares as good and right in His sight. We define God the way we want to and
He has defined Himself for us.
When Christ bid us to come and die, it was not a partial
request, but a command for the whole self to be denied. Justifying sin in light
of grace allows for us to kill off only a part of our sinful ways, but what is
leftover will consume us and sooner or later kill us.
Justifying a life lived in separation from God in some
matters is going against His will to let go of yourself so He may reveal His
good and perfect will in you. Partial denial of self is still self-centered,
which hinders God’s work in and through us.
We cannot live a double life. God has called us to be all
for Him or not at all. He would much rather us deny Him than be half way in on
the faith.
A person who only denies their self partially is
half-hearted in their faith. God must be God of all if we consider Him to be
God at all.
May we strive to be denying our self for God’s will to be
done in and through us. May we seek the things inside of us we justify that are
clearly against God’s will for His creation.
May we end the battle and allow God to reign supreme in our
lives.
Peace and blessings friends.
QUESTION: What are
you holding on to or justifying that you know God wants you to give up in order
for His work to be done in you?
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