June 12

Self-denying love

“Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).
“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matt. 16:24).

On the whole, then, to deny ourselves is to deny our own will where it does not fall in with the will of God, and that however pleasing it may be. It is to deny ourselves any pleasure which does not spring from and lead to God; that is in effect to refuse going out of our way, though into a pleasant, flowery path; to refuse what we know to be deadly poison, though agreeable to the taste.
The great hindrance of our receiving or growing in the grace of God is always the want of denying ourselves or taking up our cross.

He might have built a palace at a word
Who sometimes had not where to lay His head;
Time was when He Who nourished crowds with bread
Would not one meal unto Himself afford.

Twelve legions girded with angelic sword
Were at His beck—tho’ scorned and buffeted;
He healed another’s scratch; His own side bled,
Side, feet, hand with cruel piercings gored.

Oh, wonderful the wonders left undone!
And scarce less wonderful than those He wrought!
Oh, self-restraint passing all human thought
To have all power and be as having none!
Oh, self-denying love, which felt alone
For needs of others, never for its own.
—Richard Chenevix Trench.

The natural desire of all of us is to have better clothes, better food, better homes, more gadgets, more THINGS, but when we become a new creature in Christ our desires are reversed. Our passion then is to serve Christ, and to use as little of the things of this world as we can in order that God may have the more. That is when God will be able to evangelize the world—when His people will say, “I don’t want to have more furniture, more money, more of this and that; I just want what I need. I’ll spend as little as I can even on food, so that I can give as much as I can to God. I have only one life to live—I must give all of it to God for His work.”
—Norman Grubb.

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