Self-Denial: by Andrew Murray

 

If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. —Matthew 16:24

For the first time, Christ had definitely announced that He would have to suffer much and be killed and be raised again. “Then Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying, Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall not be unto Thee.” (verse 22). Christ’s answer was, “Get thee behind Me, Satan” (verse 23). The spirit of Peter, seeking to turn Him away from the cross and its suffering, was nothing but Satan tempting Him to turn aside from the path that God had appointed as our way of salvation.

Christ then added the words of our next verse, in which He used for the second time the words “take up his cross.” But with these words, He used a very significant expression revealing what is implied: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself.” When Adam sinned, he fell out of the life of heaven and of God into the life of the world and of self. Self‑pleasing, self‑sufficiency, and self‑exaltation became the laws of his life. When Jesus Christ came to restore man to his original place, “He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Philippians 2:8). What He has done Himself He asks of all who desire to follow Him: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself.”

Instead of denying himself, Peter denied his Lord: “I do not know the Man!” (Matthew 26:72). When a man learns to obey Christ’s commands, he says of himself, “I do not know the man!” The secret of true discipleship is to bear the cross, to acknowledge the death sentence that has been passed on self, and to deny any right that self has to rule over us.

Death to self—such is to be the Christian’s watchword. The surrender to Christ is to be so entire, the surrender to live for those around us so complete, that self is never allowed to come down from the cross to which it has been nailed, but is always kept in the place of death.

Listen to the voice of Jesus: “Deny self.” Let us ask God that we, as the disciples of Christ, who denied Himself for us, may by the grace of the Holy Spirit always live as those in whom self has been crucified with Christ, and in whom the crucified Christ now lives as Lord and Master.