Denying Ourselves.

[Servant Morris]

The first main issue with Christians is that they don't deny themselves for God, this would explain why most of us are so confused. We must cease following our own hearts and understanding of how things work by partaking solely in the word of God. We tend to get sucked into communities of the World which teaches us ways contrary to the scriptures. We have heard that we cannot serve two masters, so what makes us not heed this message? Remember, others can pull us away from God inadvertently, so we must continuously be circumspect on who we choose to dwell with.
God Bless!

 

[Dave-W]

OK so deny yourself air to breathe and food to eat.

 

[com7fy8]

Hi I heard some of this video, and here are some of the things he says > quotes and summaries may not be perfectly accurate in wording.

Matthew 10:33 > Whoever denies Jesus, Jesus will deny that person.

If others are doing what is contrary to God's word, we need to stand on the foundation of God's word, "and not to divert to appease others and them and their ideologies".

Matthew 16:24 > If anyone desires to come after Jesus, let him deny himself and take up His cross and follow Jesus.

What is the cross? Jesus died for our sins. He wanted to do the will of His Father. He could have saved Himself, put His riches on this earth. Jesus decided not to lean on His own understanding. We, too, need to be Christlike, and follow His example > to live our lives the way He lived it.

at 4 minutes in the video > "We make excuses for ourselves; and we fall way short of the glory of the Lord, by excuses."

Luke 5:9-11 > Jesus says He will make them fishers of men, now. They could have followed their own dreams of prosperity, but they forsook all; they forsook their lives, for the greater good of the glory of the Lord. They saw the greater prosperity of the Lord and not of man on this earth.

At 7:09 on the video >

Luke 9:23 > "If you desire to come after the Lord, we all must deny ourselves. We can't just make blanket statements."

"If we aren't willing to deny ourselves, all that comes to naught."

We need to take up our cross "daily", not just going to church on certain days. "It's a constant struggle, because the world tries to pull you away from the path."

"It's a constant spiritual battle, to take up the cross and deny yourselves daily, because there are a lot of distractions, of course, from our friends, and other media outlets."

At 8:56 >

"We may be focusing on one thing, but we see all these things in our peripherals that tries to distract our attention away from the main details."

 

[Servant Morris]

OK so deny yourself air to breathe and food to eat.

If it came down to life or death for God, which one should we choose?

 

[Servant Morris]

Hello, com7fy8.

Thank you for taking the time to watch the video and providing some commentary.
God bless you!

 

[com7fy8]

If it came down to life or death for God, which one should we choose?

The simple Bible answer is to choose God over keeping ourselves alive on this earth. And Jesus says that the greatest love is to lay down our lives for our friends. And, of course, Jesus died for us while we were enemies; He chose a loving death for God, over convenience for Himself.

But we see how worldly people can give their lives in war and in fire fighting and police work, yet they can have major character issues and possibly have been using women and abusing people at home. And even though there are people who would give their lives to rescue their children, there are ones who could commit suicide if they feel they can't make the right living for their families.

So, giving your life can be done in the wrong way.

And our Apostle Paul says we can give our bodies over to be burned; but if we do not have love, it profits us nothing. So, people can give their lives in a way which is not for God.

Denying self, then, has to do with becoming able to love, not only to give our lives which are not really very much, in comparison with God's love.

Ones need to become able to be quiet and sense for God and submit to how He personally rules us in His own peace. Or else, our choosing to live for Him could be our own self-produced effort. So, we need to depend on God for how He changes us to be how He means for us to be submissive >

"rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God." (1 Peter 3:4)

God is quiet. We need to deny self, including by deleting anything which is unquiet, such as bitterness, workaholic ambition, food abuse drives, other pleasure drives dominating and dictatorial, negative thinking, and nasty anger and unforgiveness. And depend on God to really correct us and change our nature to become gentle and humble and loving like Jesus.

And denying ourselves includes ending our selfish ways of loving >

"if you love those who love you, what reward have you?" (in Matthew 5:46)

 

[Servant Morris]

That's right, Com7fy8! Everything has to involve God. I wasn't implying that we deny things only for our own glory, but for God. Obviously as human beings, we have to consume food and water for basic survival. However, I will use a hypothetical example now. If someone was to tell us to consume a meal that they claimed was given to them by Satan, I'll probably starve to death.

We have to be faithful that God will provide us with our needs, not to result to our trivial understandings. The children of Israel in the wilderness continually lost faith by not putting their lives into God's hands. Though "love" is part of the equation, Ecclesiastes 3:8 states that there is also a time for hate. When it comes to "emotions" we can't have one without the other.
God bless!

 

[ViaCrucis]

There's always the option of retreating into the desert and taking upon oneself the eremitic life if that's what you think you should do.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Servant Morris]

There's always the option of retreating into the desert and taking upon oneself the eremitic life if that's what you think you should do.

-CryptoLutheran

You are absolutely correct! If the times permit us to "flee to the wilderness" then we shall.