The Rooster on the Steeple (3)

“If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” Mark 8:34

The Good Denial

Deny – Same word.  Very different verse.  There is one sense where arneomai is just what we need.  Denial is the basic attitude necessary for following Jesus.  Without it, the rooster will certainly crow.  If we do not wish to deny Jesus, then we will have to deny the world and ourselves.  There is no middle ground.  Jesus demands denial of everything except Him.  In other words, as Bonhoeffer said, “Jesus bids a man come to Him and die.”

Is that how you live?  Have you firmly determined to never seek to establish yourself by your own means?  Have you resolved that your goals will only be His goals?  Have you accepted the death of your own plans and purposes?

Don’t be surprised if God begins to show you a few areas that need to die.  By and large, we are irrational when it comes to the truth.  We know that Jesus demands complete and utter abandonment to Him and we know that this is the only pathway to true fellowship with the Father, but we go right on thinking that we can somehow keep those old self-fulfilling activities going.  We still plan our own lives.  We still try to protect ourselves.  We still worry about provisions.  We still fret over failure.  We still think it’s all up to us.  We live spiritual insanity and try to make it seem like reasonable commonsense.

The truth is that most of us just don’t trust Him.  That’s why we stumble over this verse.  We just can’t imagine how we could let go of all those things that seem so important.  We just can’t believe that God really will take care of all those pressing issues.

But arneomai (to deny) will not be watered down.  It means, “just say no” to everything that does not glorify God.  It means, “reject what the world honors”.  It means, “refuse to accommodate to the world’s standards”.  Is that how you are living?  In Jesus world, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Deny myself!  Deny everything that starts with “I, me, me, mine”.  No agenda that puts me in the first position is ever part of the Kingdom.  It’s the world upside-down.  But it’s the way of the cross.