59 Sermon Illustrations on Self-Denial

During a Peter, Paul and Mary concert, in the middle of a comic skit, Paul made an insightful and disturbing observation. In the 50s there was a magazine called Life. Then came People magazine. Now we have one called Us. What next? A magazine called Me? And now there actually is a magazine called Self. How indicative and indicting of a world infatuated and preoccupied with self. How contrary to the example and lifegiving principles of the Christ. He came to bring life. He revealed and demonstrated the principles of life. He clearly taught that life is not to be found in living for self, but rather in GIVING OF SELF in the service of God and others! He said in Luke 9:23-25 "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?" Happiness is not found in the pursuit of happiness. Life is not found in the pursuit of life. Both are found in a pursuit of God and His righteousness. As Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied" (Matthew 5:6). The end of our current emphasis on SELF is not life, but disappointment and ultimately death! If we would discover TRUE LIFE, then we must pursue the things of God and the spirit! "...whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things" (Philippians 4:8).

There have been men who could discipline and control armed legions in the most perilous encounters, but who never learnt the art of self-control. They knew nothing of fear in the most deadly strifes, when the slain around them were numbered by thousands; but they have cowardly shrunk from the contest with self. They have manfully fought for the liberties and honor of their country; but they have been the meanest slaves in the inner world of the heart. Hosts of vile passions, like ghastly spoetres, peopled their souls; and they have never dared to look them in the face, or to take one of them as a prisoner of war. Instead of dragging them to the altar, and slaying them like deadly foes before the Lord, they have succumbed to them; nay, more, treacherous to their highest and best interests, they have cherished and fostered them. Bold as they may have been elsewhere, they proved themselves too craven-hearted to assault these internal enemies, or to chase them away from the field of the heart. It is a lamentable fact, nevertheless a fact, that some of earth's greatest heroes have been the basest moral cowards. As the reward of their victories, they have been adorned with robes of office; their breasts have been docked with stars, and made to flash with gems. And well they might; for beneath that glittering robe was a heart stained with foulest blots and infamous crimes. The gems, in many cases, were all outside. Not a single star of virtue studded the heart, or beautified the soul. Within, like their own field of carnage, was full of dead men's bones, moral putrefaction, and death.

— R. Roberts

A Karen woman offered herself for baptism. After the usual examination, I inquired whether she could give up her ornaments for Christ. It was an unexpected blow. I explained the spirit of the gospel; I appealed to her own consciousness of vanity; I read to her the apostle's prohibition (1 Tim. ii. 9). She looked again and again at her handsome necklace; and then, with an air of modest decision that would adorn beyond all ornaments, she took it off, saying, "I love Christ more than this."

— Dr. Judson

The passions may be humored till they become our master, as a horse may be pampered till he gets the better of his rider; but early discipline will prevent mutiny, and keep the helm in the hands of reason. Cumberland.

Religion, in one sense, is a life of self-denial; just as husbandry, in one sense, is a work of death. You go and bury a seed, and that is husbandry; but you bury one that you may reap a hundred-fold. Self-denial does not belong to religion as characteristic of it: it belongs to human life. The lower nature must always be denied when you are trying to rise to a higher sphere. It is no more necessary to be self-denying to be a Christian than it is to be an artist, or to be an honest man, or to be a man at all, in distinction from a brute. Deecher.

An accident occurred in a coal-pit, in which several lives were lost; but a man and a boy, catching hold of a chain hanging by the side of the pit, were saved from impending death. As soon as possible, a man was sent down with a rope to render assistance. He came first, in his descent, to a boy named Daniel Harding. On his reaching him, the noble-minded lad instantly cried out, "Don't mind me, I can still hold on a little; but Joseph Brown, who is a little lower down, is nearly exhausted: save him first." Joseph Brown was saved first; and the noble boy was then drawn up to light and life.

Peter the Great once struck his gardener, who, being a man of great sensibility, took to his bed, and died in a few days. Peter, hearing of this, exclaimed with tears in his eyes, "Alas! I have civilized my own subjects; I have conquered other nations; yet I have not been able to civilize or to conquer myself."

Caius Gracchus, who was the idol of the Roman people, and having carried his regard for the lower orders so far as to draw upon himself the resentment of the nobility, an open rupture ensued; and the two extremities of Rome resembled two camps, Opimius the consul on one side, and Gracchus and his friend Fulvius on the other. A battle ensued, in which the consul, meeting with more vigorous resistance than he expected, proclaimed an amnesty for all those who should lay down their arms; and at the same time promised to pay for the heads of Gracchus and Fulvius their weight in gold. This proclamation had the desired effect. The populace deserted their leaders; Fulvius was taken and beheaded, and Gracchus, at the advice of his two friends, Licinius Crassus his brother-in-law, and Pomponius a Roman knight, determined to flee from the city. He passed, on his way, through the centre of the city, and reached the bridge Sublicius, where his enemies, who pursued him close, would have overtaken and seized him, if his two friends had not opposed their fury; but they saw the danger he was in, and they determined to save his life at the expense of their own. They defended the bridge against all the consular troops till Gracchus was out of their reach; but at length, being overpowered by numbers and covered with wounds, they both expired on the bridge which they had so valiantly defended.

# 88. Self-denying Beneficence, shown by the Rich.

John Baptist Joseph Languet, vicar of St. Sulpice at Paris, sometimes disbursed the sum of a million of livres in charities in a single year. When there was a general dearth in 1725, he sold, in order to relieve the poor, his household goods, his pictures, and some curious pieces of furniture that he had procured with great difficulty.

39. Self-denying Beneficence, shown by the Poor.

Daniel Dancer, Esq., was remarkably for a miserly disposition. Lady Tempest was the only person who had the least influence on this unfortunate man. She had one day the pleasure of prevailing on him to purchase a hat (having worn his own for thirteen years) from a Jew for a shilling; but, to her great surprise, when she called the next day, she saw the old chapeau still covered his head! On inquiry it was found that, after much solicitation, he had prevailed on old Griffiths, his servant, to purchase the hat for eighteen pence, which Mr. Dancer bought the day before for a shilling! He generally, in severe weather, laid in bed to keep himself warm; to light a fire he thought expensive, though he had 3000l. per annum, besides immense riches! He never took snuff, for that was extravagant, but he always carried a snuff box! This probably he would fill in the course of a month by pinches obtained from others! When the box was full he would barter the contents for a farthing candle at a neighboring green grocer's; this candle was made to last till the box was again full, as he never suffered any light in his house except while he was going to bed. He seldom washed his face and hands but when the sun shone forth; then he would betake himself to a neighboring pool, and used sand instead of soap; when he was washed he would lie on his back, and dry himself in the sun, as he never used a towel, for that would wear, and, when dirty, the washing was expensive. Since his death there have been jugs of dollars and shillings found in the stable. At the dead of night he has been known to go to this place, but for what purpose even O'd Griffiths could not tell; but it now appears that he used to rob one jug to add to the other.

There have been few persons in whom avarice has predominated more than in the late Mr. Elwes. His mother, indeed, was excessively avaricious; and though she was left nearly 100,000l. by her husband, yet she absolutely starved herself to death. Mr. Elwes seemed not less wretched than his mother. At his house at Stoke, in Suffolk, if a window were broken, it was mended by a piece of brown paper, or by patching it with a small bit of glass; and this had been done so frequently, and in so many shapes, that it would have puzzled a mathematician to say what figure they represented. To save fire, he would walk about the remains of an old greenhouse, or sit with a servant in the kitchen! In the advance of the season his morning employment was to pick up chips, bones, or any thing he could find, and carry them home in his pocket for fire! One day he was surprised by a neighboring gentleman in the act of pulling down, with great difficulty, a crow's nest for this purpose; and when the gentleman wondered why he should give himself so much trouble, "Oh, sir," replied Elwes, "it is really a shame that these creatures should do so; do but see what waste they make. They don't care how extravagant they are." He would almost eat any thing to save expense. At a time when he was worth eight hundred thousand pounds, he would eat game at the last state of putrefaction, and meat that no other person could touch! As to his dress, any thing would do. He wore a wig for a fortnight which he had picked up in a rut in the lane when riding with another gentleman. His shoes he never suffered to be cleaned, lest they should be worn out the sooner. As the infirmities of old age, however, came upon him, he began to be more wretched. It is said that he was heard frequently at midnight as if struggling with some one in his chamber, and crying out, "I will keep my money; nobody shall rob me of my property." There are many other remarkable circumstances related of him, but what we have already quoted will afford a striking proof of the vanity of sublunary things, and of the insufficiency of riches to render mankind happy.

DUCED.—The Marquis de Bougy, a gallant general in the service of Louis XIV, was greatly esteemed by that monarch, and by his prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin. He would have made a great fortune, if he had been a Roman Catholic; and he received several letters from the queen and from the cardinal, wherein they exhorted him to change his profession, and thereby remove the obstacle which lay in the way of his advancement. They also offered him a marshal's staff, and a considerable government, provided he would become a Roman Catholic. His answer was, that if he could resolve to betray his God for a marshal's staff, he might betray his king for a less advantage; but that he would do neither of them, being contented to see that his services were acceptable, and that his religion was the only reason why he was not rewarded for them.

DENIAL OF VA-RIOUS MARTYRS.—JULIUS PALMER, in Queen Mary's days, had life and preferment offered him, if he would recant his faith in Christ. His answer was, that he had resigned his living in two places for the sake of the gospel, and now was ready to yield his life on account of Christ.

WILLIAM HUNTER, when urged by Bonner to recant, replied, he could only be moved by the Scriptures, for he reckoned the things of earth but dross for Christ; and when the sheriff offered him a pardon at the stake, if he would renounce his faith, he firmly rejected it.

ANTONIUS RICETO, a Venetian, was offered his life, and considerable wea. h, if he would concede but a l. le; and when his own son, with weeping entreated him to do so, he answered, that he was resolved to lose both children and estate for Christ.

The PRINCE OF CONDÉ, at the massacre of Paris, when the King assured him that he should die within three days, if he did not renounce his religion, told the monarch that his life and estate were in his hand, and that he would give up both rather than renounce the truth.

The simplicity of many of the heathen, when they receive the truth of God in the love of it, is often very admirable. Rev. W. M. Harvard states, in his narrative relative to Ceylon, that when he was once addressing a native congregation in the government school-house at Pantura, from 1 John iii. 8, he endeavored to show that the Kappooa system was one of the works of the devil which the Son of God came to destroy; and urged their immediate renunciation of all confidence in their vain charms, and to commit the keeping of their bodies and their souls to God. Appealing to their understandings and consciences, he inquired, "Which of you will now cast away these works of the devil, and place himself under the protection of the Son of God?" He looked round upon the congregation, as for a reply. Presently a charm was handed up to the pulpit, which had been broken off for that purpose. He held it up, and gave thanks to God, that in that place he had begun to destroy these works of the devil. He then repeated

# 401. SEI

The Abbé Barruel, in the account he gives of the closing scenes of Diderot's life, tells us, that he had a Christian servant, to whom he had been kind, and who waited upon him in his last illness. This servant took a tender interest in the melancholy situation of his master, who was just about to leave this world, without preparation for another. Though a young man, he ventured one day, the inquiry, "Who next?" &c., and two or three more abandoned charms were handed up in a similar way. Before the close of the service, a handful of them was in his possession.

A gentleman (he is such now,) who used to be a tremendous rum-drinker, tobacco-chewer and smoker; but for several years past has been a reformed man, writes to a friend in the city of N. York, in the following terms:

"I have seen the time that my desire for tobacco has been vastly stronger than it ever has been for food. Once I was on a lee-shore; the wind blew, the sea was tremendous. The last time I saw the rocky shore, it was three miles to the leeward. It was late in the afternoon; I felt certain we should be on the rocks before morning, if the wind continued. I felt in my pocket for some tobacco, but could find none. I examined every part of the vessel where I thought it possible to find any. I inquired of the crew but there was none on board. At that time I would have given fifty dollars for one quid. The gale ceased, we soon found a harbor, and the first thing I inquired for was tobacco.

I chewed about twenty-one years, and smoked about eighteen. For a long time before I quit the use of tobacco, I believed it was injurious to me, but I felt it was almost impossible to leave it off. Eventually I was awakened, and felt that such practices were sinful. I then thought I would try to leave them off. When I quit smoking, I felt comparatively that I had lost all my friends. I could not eat or sleep as usual; I felt restless, and for some weeks thought it uncertain whether I should be able to conquer a habit that had become so strong. But at last it was overcome. I then thought I would quit chewing—then came the struggle. To quit smoking was but a trifle in comparison. After I had determined to try to quit chewing, I always kept a piece of tobacco in my pocket. I was doubtful whether I should be able to leave it off. Many times, before I was aware of it I found I had had a piece in my mouth a long time. As soon as I perceived it, I would take it out, but often before it was discharged, I would give it one solid grind. There is nothing in the world so exquisitely sweet as tobacco. In a few months the habit was overcome, but it was almost like plucking out my right eye, or cutting off my right arm. When I had entirely ceased from using it—I had a better appetite—my sleep was sweeter, my mind more composed—my nerves were more firm—I grew more fleshy; and now I enjoy perfect health, and can endure double the fatigue that I could for a long time before I quit the use of tobacco."

See FOOLISHNESS SOMETIMES IS WISDOM; PREFERRED CREDITOR.

ASCETICISM

The black shadow of asceticism spread over the sky of the Puritan Fathers. Given two coats, they chose the ugliest one. Given two colors for the woman’s garb, they chose the saddest and somberest. Given two roads, they chose the one that held the most thorns and cutting rocks. Given two forms of fear and self-denial, they took both. The favorite text of asceticism is “deny yourself.” The favorite color of asceticism is black; its favorite music, a dirge; its favorite hour is midnight; its favorite theme is a tombstone. The mistake of asceticism is in thinking that pain by itself considered has a moral value.

— N. D. HILLIS

John Chrysostom, from a little town in the Taurus Mountains named Cucusus, to which he had been banished by Arcadius, addrest a treatise to Olympias entitled, “None Can Hurt a Man Who Will Not Hurt Himself.” Later, dying from cruel exposure, the last moments of this holy man were spent in praising God and admonishing his companions, and his last words were, “I have never been hurt, because I have not hurt myself.” (Text.)

The first principle of Christianity is to forget one’s self. When Wilberforce was straining every energy to get his bill for the emancipation of slaves passed, a lady once said to him, “Mr. Wilberforce, I’m afraid you are so busy about those slaves that you are neglecting your own soul.” “True, madam,” he said; “I had quite forgotten that I have one.” That remark contains one of the deepest truths of Christianity. (Text.)

The caddis-fly leaves his tube behind and soars into upper air; the creature abandons its barnacle existence on the rock and swims at large in the sea. For it is just when we die to custom that, for the first time, we rise into the true life of humanity; it is just when we abandon all prejudice of our own superiority over others, and become convinced of our entire indefensibleness, that the world opens out with comrade faces in all directions.--_Fortnightly Review._

Self-love in our culture has become a cult. Moses and Jesus don't command us to love ourselves. Self-love is a fact but not a virtue. Self-love is the biblical notion of sin (2 Tim. 3:1-4). But neither should we hate ourselves.

1. One key: Self-denial and the cross.

2. Second key: Self-affirmation and the cross.

a. Brought out by Jesus in is teaching about people.

b. Brought out by Jesus in his attitude toward people.

c. Brought out by Jesus' mission and death for people.

3. Resolving the paradox.

a. Affirm what we are by creation.

b. Deny what we are by the Fall. [1484]

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Full article: Am I Supposed To Love Myself or Hate Myself? (The cross points a way between self-love and self-denial) by John R. W. Stott

How should I think of myself? What attitude should I adopt toward myself? These are contemporary questions of great importance, questions to which a satisfactory answer cannot be given without reference to the Cross.

A low self-image is common, since many modern influences dehumanize human beings and make them feel worthless. Wherever people are politically or economically oppressed, they feel demeaned. Racial and sexual prejudice have the same effect. As Arnold Toynbee put it, technology demotes persons into serial numbers, “punched on a card and designed to travel through the entrails of a computer.” Ethologists like Desmond Morris tell us that human beings are nothing but animals, and behaviorists like B. F. Skinner say that they are nothing but machines programmed to make automatic responses to external stimuli.

Further, the pressures of a competitive society make many feel like failures. And, of course, there is the personal tragedy of being unloved and unwanted. All these are causes of a low self-image.

In overreaction to this set of influences is the popular movement in the opposite direction. With the laudable desire to build self-respect, it speaks of human potential as virtually limitless. Others emphasize the need to love ourselves. In his perceptive book Psychology As Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship (1977), Paul Vitz cites the following as an illustration of “selfist jargon”:

“I love me. I am not conceited. I'm just a good friend to

myself. And I like to do whatever makes me feel good....”

Another example is this limerick:

There once was a nymph named Narcissus,

Who thought himself very delicious;

So he stared like a fool

At his face in a pool,

And his folly today is still with us.

A COMMON ERROR

In spite of widespread teaching to the contrary, the Mosaic injunction, endorsed by Jesus, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” is not a command to love ourselves. Three arguments may be adduced.

GRAMMATICALLY, Jesus did not say that the second and third commandments are to love our neighbor and ourselves, but that the second commandment is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Self-love here is a fact we should recognize (and use to guide our conduct, as with the Golden Rule), but it is not a virtue to be commended.

LINGUISTICALLY, agape love means self-sacrifice in the service of others. It cannot therefore be self-directed. The concept of sacrificing ourselves to save ourselves is nonsense.

THEOLOGICALLY, self-love is the biblical notion of sin. One of the marks of the last days in which we live, Paul writes, is that people will be “lovers of self” instead of “lovers of God” (2 Tim 3:1-4).

ONE KEY: SELF-DENIAL AND THE CROSS

The question is, How can we renounce both self-hatred and self-love? How can we avoid a self-evaluation that is either too low or too high? In biblical terms, how can we “think soberly” about ourselves (Rom. 12:3)? The cross of Christ supplies the answer, for it calls us both to self-denial and to self-affirmation.

Jesus' call to self-denial is plain: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). Now, the Romans had made crucifixion a common sight in all their colonized provinces, and Palestine was no exception. Every rebel and criminal who was condemned to death by crucifixion was compelled to carry his cross to the scene of his execution. John wrote of Jesus that “carrying his own cross, he went out to The Place of the Skull” (19:17). To take up our cross, therefore, and follow Jesus is vivid imagery for self-denial. It is to “put ourselves into the position of a condemned criminal on his way to execution” (H. B. Swete). For if we are following Jesus with a cross on our shoulder, there is only one place to which we can follow him: the place of execution. As Bonhoeffer put it, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

To deny ourselves is to behave toward ourselves as Peter did toward Jesus when he denied him three times. The verb is the same. He disowned him, repudiated him, turned his back on him. So must we do to ourselves. Self-denial is not denying ourselves luxuries like candies, cakes, cigarettes, and cocktails (though it may include this); it is actually denying or disowning ourselves, renouncing our supposed right to go our own way. Paul was elaborating the metaphor of cross bearing when he wrote that “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24). We have taken our slippery self and nailed it to Christ's cross.

ANOTHER KEY: SELF-AFFIRMATION AND THE CROSS

I wonder how you have reacted to the last couple of paragraphs? I hope you have felt uneasy about them. For they have expressed such a negative attitude to self that they appear to align Christians with the bureaucrats and technocrats, the ethologists and behaviorists, in demeaning human beings. It is not that what I have written is untrue (for Jesus said it), but that it is only one side of the truth. It implies that our “self” is wholly bad and must therefore be totally rejected, indeed “crucified”!

But we must not overlook another strand in Scripture. Alongside Jesus' explicit call to self-denial is his implicit call to self-affirmation (which is not the same as self-love). Nobody who reads the Gospels as a whole could possibly gain the impression that Jesus had a negative attitude to human beings himself, or encouraged one in others. The opposite is the case.

Consider, first, his teaching about people. He spoke of their “value” in God's sight. They are “much more valuable” than birds or beasts, he said (Matt. 6:26; 12:12). What was the ground of this value judgment? It must have been the doctrine of Creation, which Jesus took over from the Old Testament. It is the divine image in us that gives us our distinctive value. In his excellent little book The Christian Looks at Himself (1975), Prof. Anthony Hoekema quotes a young black who, rebelling against the inferiority feelings inculcated in him by whites, put up this banner in his room: “I'm me and I'm good, 'cos God don't make junk.”

Then, second, there was Jesus' attitude toward people. He despised nobody. On the contrary, he went out of his way to honor those the world dishonored, and to accept those the world rejected. He spoke courteously to women in public. He invited children to come to him. He spoke words of hope to Samaritans and Gentiles. He allowed leprosy sufferers to approach him and a prostitute to anoint and kiss his feet. He ministered to the poor and hungry and made friends with the outcasts of society. In all this, his love for human beings shone out. He acknowledged their value and loved them, and by loving them he increased their value.

Third, and in particular, we must remember Jesus' mission and death for people. He had come to serve, not to be served, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Nothing indicates more clearly the value Jesus placed on people than his determination to suffer and die for them. He was the Good Shepherd who came into the desert to seek and save only one lost sheep, and who laid down his life for his sheep. It is only when we look at the cross that we see the true worth of human beings. As William Temple expressed it, “My worth is what I am worth to God, and that is a marvelous great deal because Christ died for me.”

RESOLVING THE PARADOX

We have seen so far that the cross of Christ is both a proof of the value of the human self and a picture of how to deny and crucify it. How can this biblical paradox be resolved? How is it possible to value ourselves and to deny ourselves simultaneously?

The problem arises because we discuss and develop alternative attitudes to ourselves before we have defined this “self” we are talking about. Our “self” is not a simple entity that is either wholly good or wholly evil, one that should therefore be either totally valued or totally denied. Our “self” is a complex entity of good and evil, glory and shame, which therefore requires that we develop more subtle attitudes.

What we are (our self or personal identity) is partly the result of the Creation (the image of God), and partly the result of the Fall (the image defaced). The self we are to deny, disown, and crucify is our fallen self, everything within us that is incompatible with Jesus Christ (hence Christ's command, “let him deny himself and follow me”). The self we are to affirm and value is our created self, everything within us that is compatible with Jesus Christ (hence his statement that if we lose ourselves by self-denial we shall find ourselves). True self-denial (the denial of our false, fallen self) is not the road to self-destruction, but the road to self-discovery.

So, then, whatever we are by creation, we must affirm: our rationality, our sense of moral obligation, our masculinity and femininity, our aesthetic appreciation and artistic creativity, our stewardship of the fruitful earth, our hunger for love and community, our sense of the transcendent mystery of God, and our inbuilt urge to fall down and worship him. All this is part of our created humanness. True, it has all been tainted and twisted by sin. Yet Christ came to redeem and not destroy it. So we must affirm it.

But whatever we are by the Fall, we must deny or repudiate: our irrationality; our moral perversity; our loss of sexual distinctives; our fascination with the ugly; our lazy refusal to develop God's gifts; our pollution and spoliation of the environment; our selfishness, malice, individualism, and revenge, which are destructive of human community; our proud autonomy; and our idolatrous refusal to worship God. All this is part of our fallen humanness. Christ came not to redeem this but to destroy it. So we must deny it.

DIGNITY AND DEPRAVITY

There is, therefore, a great need for discernment in our self-understanding. Who am I? What is my “self”? Answer: I'm a Jekyll and Hyde, a mixed-up kid, having both dignity, because I was created in God's image, and depravity, because I am fallen and rebellious. I am both noble and ignoble, beautiful and ugly, good and bad, upright and twisted, image of God and slave of the Devil. My true self is what I am by creation, which Christ came to redeem. My fallen self is what I am by the Fall, which Christ came to destroy.

Only when we have discerned which is which within us shall we know what attitude to adopt toward evil. We must be true to our true self and false to our false self. We must be fearless in affirming all that we are by creation, and ruthless in disowning all that we are by the Fall.

Moreover, Christ's cross teaches us both attitudes. On one hand, it is the measure of the value of our true self, since Christ died for us. On the other hand, it is the model for the denial of our false self, since we are to nail it to the cross and so put it to death.

Self Denial

An Admirer once asked Leonard Bernstain, celebrated orchestra

conductor, what was the hardest instruement to play. He replied

without hesitation: "Second fiddle. I can always get plenty of

first violinists, but to find one who plays second violin with

as much enthusiasm or second French horn or second flute, now

that's a problem. And yet if no one plays second, we have no

harmony."

James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited, Tyndale, 1988, p. 450

German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed by the Nazis because of his testimony [and because he was a spy for the Allies], made this statement: "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die." To follow Jesus no matter what the cost -- that's the way of the cross.

Denying oneself is not to be equated with losing one's uniqueness

or becoming of no value. There have been great people in each

generation who modeled self-denial as they made significant

contribution to humankind. One such man was General Robert E. Lee,

commander-in-chief of the Confederate troops during the Civil War. Few

eagles soared higher during these darkest days of our nation's history

than General Lee. In Northern Virginia, probably on his last visit

there. A young mother brought her baby to him to be blessed. He took

the infant in his arms and looked at it and then at her and slowly

said, "Teach him he must deny himself."

A friend told me that he was visiting a lighthouse lately, and said

to the keeper: "Are you not afraid to live here? It is a dreadful

place to be constantly in." "No," replied the man, "I am not afraid.

We never think of ourselves here."

"Never think of yourselves! How is that?" The reply was a good one:

"We know that we are perfectly safe, and only think of having our

lamps burning brightly, and keeping the reflectors clear so that those

in danger may be saved." That is what Christians ought to do. They are

safe in a house built on a rock, which cannot be moved by the wildest

storm, and in a spirit of holy unselfishness, they should let their

light gleam across the dark waves of sin, that they who are imperiled

may be guided into the harbor of eternal safety. --Sword and Trowel