Unless I deny myself, I cannot make room for my God…
There is something frighteningly simple about what Christ asks of us. I call it frightening because it is the sort of thing that we truly cannot understand.
After all, why would I ever want to be a Christian if I had a choice? What does God actually ask of me in this Christianity?...
“And He called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for his life? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’” (Mark 8:34-9:1).
There it is – what I am asked to do as a Christian – and it is sort of horrible. After all, Christ said, in order to be His follower, I must deny myself. All the things that I would enjoy I shall instead deny. And this means that I must sit back and suffer. It means that if there is a choice between something nice and something awful then I must really just settle down for the awful stuff. If I have the choice of doing something purely for pleasure – a thing that feels great to me – I must instead, deny myself and look towards some suffering instead.
So that means that when there is a sacrifice to be made, Christ asks that I make it. When there is a suffering to be experienced, Christ asks that I walk through it.
Christ did not say, pick up a cloud and float to Heaven. He said, instead, watch how I do it – see how I suffer – and if you wish to atone of your sins, you too must suffer and you too must die. And so that I can be prepared for the final physical death of my body, when I give up all my physical things – my health, my muscles, my senses, my brain, my heart, my things, so too must I practice little “deaths” in preparation for the final physical death of my body. So too must I condition myself so that when the final day comes, I can cast off these worldly things and follow my Blessed Lord.
For Christ is God and the King of the Universe and He asks of me one thing… DENY YOURSELF… And He does not ask this for nothing. He asks this because He knows that if I refuse to deny myself in life, then I shall be unprepared to deny myself in death. And unless I deny myself, I cannot make room for my God…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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