“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)
The concept of “dying to self” is found throughout the New Testament. It expresses the true spirit of the Christian life, in which we take up our cross and follow Christ. Dying to self is part of being born again; the old self dies and the new self comes to life.
Not only are Christians born again when we come to salvation, but we also continue dying to self as part of the process of sanctification (being made holy through the power of God). So, dying to self is both a one-time event and a lifelong process.
Charles Spurgeon once said, “I have now concentrated all my prayers into one... that I may die to self, and live wholly to Him.”
Sometimes people mistake dying to self for death of self. But self-denial is not self-rejection. God treasures your divinely created self. He doesn’t want to destroy the part of you that makes you uniquely you. God works within you and reshapes you into the person your renewed-in-Christ self is meant to be, not selfish with what you own, not concerned about how circumstances affect only you, and not grouchy when others seem to get what you want.
We need to humble ourselves by stating that serving ourselves is not good. In a sense this is what dying to self essentially means. We recognize serving self is not good and so we choose to serve the Christ.
Commitment to saying no to the old nature comes only as:
1) We are sure of the old nature's total rebellion against God and
2) We desire to serve the Spirit.
Our growth comes as we recognize the complete rebellious nature of the flesh and power of the new life through the life of Christ. Dying to self means simply a mental check on our determination not to live for oneself and to live for Christ. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I die every day."
This is a regular battle. A daily battle.
Before I got married, I was very selfish. All my time was spent on my own desires, my own interests, and whatever I wanted to do. But after I got married, I had to deny all of the things that I used to do and loved doing and had a new desire. I wanted to please my wife so my desires changed with my life’s circumstances. What used to be all about me became all about her.
In the same way, I used to love my sin and Christians know that sin is pleasurable only for a season. (See Heb 11:25) Then the Holy Spirit began to change my desire and what I used to love (sin) I began to hate. My old self was dying but it didn’t always come naturally nor did it come quickly. When a person repents, they turn from their sins, and although we still stumble and fall, we get back up.
That’s the difference between an unsaved person and a saved person; the unsaved person doesn’t fall into sin, they dive into it with pleasure and swim in it with no desire to get out of it. But the saved person has become a new creature in Christ. (See 2 Cot 5:17) And although they are not sinless, they do want to sin less! Every Christian falls and stumbles but they get back up, dust themselves off, and keep moving forward, growing in holiness by the help of God’s Spirit.
Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote, “While we love ourselves, Christ will not come into our hearts. We have to be rid of the love of self. This is the most difficult of all tasks in our experience. The ultimate battle in the Christian life is to get rid of self and self-love. And of ourselves we cannot do this.” (The Unsearchable Riches of Christ, pg. 164)
Is dying to self a necessity for you to mature in Christ? Yes, it is. If you do not die to self, you will live for self. If you live for self, you cannot know the fullness of Jesus Christ in your life. Since living for self results in a believer’s spiritual immaturity, ask the Lord to help you live for Him by dying to self.
If you are serious about this conversation, you can be certain that God will direct the process now and bring it to completion. Philippians 1:6 promises, “…being confident of this that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
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