How much should we deny ourselves for others?

[Maniel]

Hi there

I'm interested in knowing your perspectives on how much one should deny himself for the sake of others.

What does love your neighbor mean? In what way should one honor their parents?

I'm asking, because I have two parents who are struggling quite a bit. They had a quite traumatic upbringing, and they haven't dealt with their thoughts and emotions very well.
My dad used to drink smoke, and watch television and play video games most of the time. They got seperated a while back in my late 20's. Both are lonely. I've been caught in their trouble and drunkenness many times, and their fighting since I was a child. And they in mine, when I got into drugs myself in my early 20's and some years ahead. I was chaotic, as they were. They tried their best, and I can only say I had a much better upbringing than they ever did, and I do love them.
But I also don't always find the capacity to stay around too much. I had to ask my mother to return home to her place and not let her sleep over, as I felt annoyance with their recent seperation and the way they deal with it.

How much does God ask us to deny ourselves? How much should I be willing to try and help them, support them, love them? Is there a place, when God is letting us surrender people to him, as we cannot do it ourselves? Or is there a way of love and wisdom to be welcoming under stressful circumstances?

 

[All Becomes New]

Hi.

This is a very difficult situation and I don't think anyone is going to have the perfect answer for you without fully knowing your situation.

It is difficult because when you ask how much we should deny ourselves, Christ literally obeyed the command of His Father to have his flesh torn apart and nails through His wrists and feet. In other words, there is no bottom to this question.

That being said, Christ did occasionally retreat to be by Himself and pray. So even he needed time alone.

I know this does not even begin to answer your question in depth, but I hope you can understand the principles at least.

 

[bling]

No easy answer. This takes lots of time and understanding, so I would suggest seeking counseling help for yourself and them. Feel free to bring Christ into the conversation. You can be honest and tell them what you are doing for them is really hard and it is all because of what Christ has done for me, I do for you.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Hi there

I'm interested in knowing your perspectives on how much one should deny himself for the sake of others.

What does love your neighbor mean? In what way should one honor their parents?

I'm asking, because I have two parents who are struggling quite a bit. They had a quite traumatic upbringing, and they haven't dealt with their thoughts and emotions very well.
My dad used to drink smoke, and watch television and play video games most of the time. They got seperated a while back in my late 20's. Both are lonely. I've been caught in their trouble and drunkenness many times, and their fighting since I was a child. And they in mine, when I got into drugs myself in my early 20's and some years ahead. I was chaotic, as they were. They tried their best, and I can only say I had a much better upbringing than they ever did, and I do love them.
But I also don't always find the capacity to stay around too much. I had to ask my mother to return home to her place and not let her sleep over, as I felt annoyance with their recent seperation and the way they deal with it.

How much does God ask us to deny ourselves? How much should I be willing to try and help them, support them, love them? Is there a place, when God is letting us surrender people to him, as we cannot do it ourselves? Or is there a way of love and wisdom to be welcoming under stressful circumstances?

This is your question:

How much should I be willing to try and help them, support them, love them?

You are asking a forum to give you advice on how much you should love your parents. Then you couple it with " denying oneself ". The Fathers will is that we love Him and one another. There is no degree of love, just love.

Blessings.

 

[FireDragon76]

Those sorts of things are aspirational ideals, as my pastor put it, no one can require you to be a martyr.

The best way to honor your parents is to treat them the way you would want to be treated, given their situation, with understanding and compassion. That is going to look different for everyone. For some people, compassion means you can't deal with people personally, but you can pray for them. You don't want to let people, even your parents, compromise your integrity, who you know yourself to be, or who you want to be.

 

[timewerx]

I'd say count your blessings. It could have been a lot lot worse like in my situation.

I have to take care of my mom for life. No one else would. I'll have to stay single indefinitely.

Yet I'm not complaining of that aspect in my life. Not really the worst part.

The worst part is my parents have made some bad investments that have incurred huge debts. So we're also drowning in debt while living in a poor 3rd world country.

I've made some rather extreme adjustments in my life to save money like riding bicycle to commute everywhere, no matter how far. I've cut back my meals to only two meals a day. I no longer eat anything in between meals.

I have hypertension but instead of taking medicine to keep my blood pressure normal, I do relatively intense exercise everyday to save money. And in order to save money even further, I don't meet the calorie deficit of exercise by eating more food. I'm slightly underweight as a result.

I also avoid drinking plenty of water. I only drink 5 to 7 glasses of water a day to avoid nutritional deficit of not having enough nutrients to eat. And that's accounting for the intense daily workouts as well. I'm concerned that drinking too much water would dilute the little nutrients I have left in my body.

We have other problems as well like having a narcissist relative who controls every aspect of our life. The situation this creates is nearly as bad as drowning in debt.

Between the living conditions and enormous stress of such life creates, I don't expect to live long this way so I've also let other relatives know if I become sick and terminally ill, I will refuse any medical intervention. I did a great deal of personal research on how to die absolutely painlessly and peacefully at no cost and without endangering anybody else should I become terminally ill. It's only a simple matter of biology.

Some of you might think I literally hate my life like the Bible verse John 12:25 But things could have different quite different had my life been a lot more pleasant. I probably chose this life too or things are just inevitable for people like me with psychological issues. I'm unable to make friends or even connect with our relatives so in our hour need no one's going to help us.

Literally why I made that other thread about money and the question if you lose all your money, do you die right there or pretty soon. That verse sounded pretty much like when you lose all your money, heaven awaits. I'm not wishing it would but wondering.

But yeah, I'm forced to deny myself in a relatively extreme manner by circumstances, not exactly a voluntary choice. So I'm saying if you can make this choice, consider that a huge blessing already.

 

[Clare73]

Hi there
I'm interested in knowing your perspectives on how much one should deny himself for the sake of others.
What does love your neighbor mean? In what way should one honor their parents?
I'm asking, because I have two parents who are struggling quite a bit. They had a quite traumatic upbringing, and they haven't dealt with their thoughts and emotions very well.
My dad used to drink smoke, and watch television and play video games most of the time. They got seperated a while back in my late 20's. Both are lonely. I've been caught in their trouble and drunkenness many times, and their fighting since I was a child. And they in mine, when I got into drugs myself in my early 20's and some years ahead. I was chaotic, as they were. They tried their best, and I can only say I had a much better upbringing than they ever did, and I do love them.
But I also don't always find the capacity to stay around too much. I had to ask my mother to return home to her place and not let her sleep over, as I felt annoyance with their recent seperation and the way they deal with it.

That is to be expected. You grew up in a toxic environment, and you can handle only so much of it, if you yourself are going to function.
God would have you do the best you can with them, and that includes having to limit your exposure to them because of their toxicity.
Let their true need, your love for them, your limitations regarding their toxicity and the Holy Spirit guide you.

 

[rebornfree]

Hi there

I'm interested in knowing your perspectives on how much one should deny himself for the sake of others.

What does love your neighbor mean? In what way should one honor their parents?

I'm asking, because I have two parents who are struggling quite a bit. They had a quite traumatic upbringing, and they haven't dealt with their thoughts and emotions very well.
My dad used to drink smoke, and watch television and play video games most of the time. They got seperated a while back in my late 20's. Both are lonely. I've been caught in their trouble and drunkenness many times, and their fighting since I was a child. And they in mine, when I got into drugs myself in my early 20's and some years ahead. I was chaotic, as they were. They tried their best, and I can only say I had a much better upbringing than they ever did, and I do love them.
But I also don't always find the capacity to stay around too much. I had to ask my mother to return home to her place and not let her sleep over, as I felt annoyance with their recent seperation and the way they deal with it.

How much does God ask us to deny ourselves? How much should I be willing to try and help them, support them, love them? Is there a place, when God is letting us surrender people to him, as we cannot do it ourselves? Or is there a way of love and wisdom to be welcoming under stressful circumstances?

I've just had a look through the concordance (NIV Study Bible) and the only reference to 'deny' in this context, which I can find, is related to Jesus in Matt 16 v 24, Mark 8 v 34 and Luke 9 v 23. The context is when Jesus said that He was going to suffer and die and Peter said that that should never happen. Jesus rebuked Peter and told him that he was seeing things from a human, not Divine, perspective. He then went on to say that we should pick up our cross (Luke says 'daily') and follow Him, pointing out that if we try to save our life we would lose it but if we lose it FOR HIM AND THE SAKE OF THE GOSPEL (my capitals) we would save it. I think that this refers to making Jesus the first priority in our lives and living for Him. Peter had just had it revealed to him, by God the Father, that Jesus is the Christ (Matt 16 v 16, 17); i.e. the long awaited Messiah, whose coming had been prophesied about for centuries. This is awesome. For those to whom Jesus was speaking, and for us, following Jesus might mean giving up our plans for our own lives, but it is doing so for something infinitely much better. So that is where I think the 'deny' comes in, but it brings many blessings for us and for others. Jesus is a God who heals and delivers us.

So we deny ourselves for the gospel in putting Jesus first in our lives but regarding other people Jesus told us to love them as we love ourselves (Matt 19 v 19) It also says honour your father and your mother, which is probably what you are referring to. Note that it doesn't say we have to love them more than ourselves nor that it is wrong to love ourselves. In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10 v 25-37) the Samaritan helped the man who had been beaten, took him to the inn and paid for him, but he still went on his journey. He looked to his own needs as well as the other man's. Philippians 2 v 4 says that we should look to the interests of others as well as our own, but it doesn't say instead of our own.

So to answer your question I think we should deny ourselves for Jesus, and the gospel, to the extent of putting Him and it first in our lives, even to the point of death should it come to it. However, I do not think that means we have to jump through every hoop which other people expect us to. We should love them and let the Lord guide us in our relationship with them.

Now this is my own view, which I do not have a scripture for but I think may be covered under teachings about loving each other, not judging and being careful about how we speak about others. Personally I do not believe that the offspring of a marriage are the right people for the parents to go to for emotional support regarding their difficulties with each other. In fact I think that the parents should be respecting that their children are also the children of the other parent. So it would be a good situation if your mother, when talking to you about your father, sees him as your father rather than the man she is divorcing, and vice versa with your father. In other words they want you to have a good relationship with the other parent despite their difficulties with each other. My father, for reasons unknown to me, had a problem with my mother's older sister, but he never let that interfere with my relationship with her as my aunt, nor my mother's as her sister. That is what I wish for you, and will pray about it, that your parents stop involving you in their issues with each other. So it may be in their best interests, as well as your own, that you set boundaries with them and refuse to discuss their marital issues with them. You also have to consider that you have other people in your life. How is it affecting your responsibilities towards them? You need to live in peace so that you can be effective in what the Lord wants you to do: at home, in the church, at work, amongst your friends etc.