The Deep Joy of Self-Denial

Jesus gives us commands — “demands,” we might call them. They are words issued to us from his comprehensive authority in all of heaven and earth, all linked together in some way, forming a beautiful tapestry of what it means to live under his lordship.

But the question remains for us in how they are connected. How do we understand them in relation to one another? Take, for example, the commands to rejoice and renounce.

Jesus tells us in Luke 6:22–23,

Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

This command is to rejoice. Paradoxically, we are blessed when we’re reviled on account of Jesus. And when that happens, “in that day” Jesus tells us, we should rejoice and leap for joy. Why? Because our reward is great in heaven.   Continue at Jonathan Parnell

Preaching Self-Denial to a Culture Consumed with Self-Love

We live in a culture of self-love, to put it simply, a culture that is consumed with self-love, ego-building, self-esteem, feeling good about yourself, thinking you’re important, thinking you’re valuable, thinking you’re a hero, thinking you’ve achieved something, thinking you’re worthy of honor. We’re drowning in awards for everything imaginable and unimaginable.

Parents are consumed with boosting the egos of their children with every imaginable means, as well as boosting their own sense of self-value. This is the generation of self-lovers.

And just by way of reminder, in 2 Timothy chapter 3 the apostle Paul classified “love of self” as a sin. In fact, a dominating sin. In one of his familiar lists of iniquities, there are numbers of them in his letters, he begins the list of iniquities in 2 Timothy chapter 3 with “lovers of self,” and then “lovers of money,” and then goes through the rest of his list. This describes deceivers, unbelievers, those outside the Kingdom of God, those who do not know the truth. Self-love is at the top of the list in terms of normal human attitude. Sinners are consumed with pride. They’re consumed with themselves. We have made that into THE prominent, dominant virtue in our society.  Continue at Eric T. Young