Denial leads to Destruction

Denial leads to Desctruction

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 

25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

26 What good will it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? Or what can you give in exchange for your soul?

27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward everyone according to what they have done.

28 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Matthew 16: 24-28

      Pride comes before a fall, and denial will lead to your destruction. Sounds bad doesn’t it, and I will agree that the first part does sound really bad, but it is true, and I know because I have come face to face with my own pride and it has caused me to fall numerous times.

      The second part sound bad only if you take it that way, only if you see it as the way it has been written and not what it actually means scripturally. Carefully read through Matthew 16: 24-28, it is so important that Jesus mentions it twice, and it is mentioned in 2 other books in the Bible, Luke and John also mention this phrase. In Matthew 10: 38 Jesus says “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. “

      So now why do I combine denial and destruction?

      It is simple really. When you deny yourself you deny that you are important, you deny that you have it all figured out, you completely wreck your thought process and your outlook on life. You are destroyed, but here is the good thing, now you are ready for God to make you new. Now that you have realized that you don’t have it all figured out, and the whole universe does not revolve around you, God can truly start to work in your life. I can tell you honestly that when God moves in to your life, anything is left that you haven’t destroyed, or that is not of Him will be destroyed.

      When you deny yourself you allow God to move in and when he moves in He will destroy everything that is not meant to be. Denial leads to your destruction, and there could be nothing better than that.

      You have to be wrecked to be made new and sometimes that means you take down the very foundation that the building was on, you tear it all down and let God build a new foundation. And that can be really hard, because when you think about it, most foundations are pretty sound, and they take a lot of work to break down, and a lot of blood sweat and tears will go into it. But it is so worth it because his foundation is always stronger, and more steadfast. You have to start a new way of thinking, and your life will be better for it.

      When you deny yourself you will find it easier to love your neighbor, to forgive those who do wrong against you, to trust God with your finances, your family and your life. The negatives seem a lot easier to deal with (they are not gone, and don’t ever tell anyone that I said they were gone).

      I will tell you one more thing though, that denial of self is a daily thing, you have to make a conscious decision to do it each and every day, you must choose to die daily, to take up your cross deny yourself and follow Him. You have to wake up in the morning and say to yourself that you are not living for yourself and ask God to continue to work on your foundation, to make you new, and to let him rule your day. Every single step of the way. 

Forgive, forget, and let God's will reign in your life!

By the way, you can now follow me on twitter @guyfromchurch :)