07/03/2026
What does it mean to deny ourselves?
by RL Beasley
“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Jesus in Luke 9:23).
Jesus spoke the text above to His disciples 2,000 years ago, but it is most relevant for us today, because it is a requirement for everyone who follows the Lord in every generation until He returns to earth. We should take this obligation very seriously.
To deny something is to refuse or reject it. This is very personal because what Jesus is telling us to do is deny ourselves! What did He mean with this statement?
To deny ourselves is to have the desire to follow the instructions of the Bible concerning how we are to live rather than living the way we want to live. We must have the desire to surrender our will to God’s will. To give up our fleshly affections and any self-righteousness that we may have; and renounce our life of sin, and follow the path the Lord has laid out for us in the Bible.
What If I Have No Desire To Do This?
Before we have any desire in our heart to deny our self, we must be right with God (justified in His eyes). We are to love Him more than anything, and that comes with genuine repentance for our sins and being born-again by believing that Jesus Christ died on Calvary’s cross, and that He was buried and was raised from the dead and that His shed blood covers our sins (John 3:1-8, Romans 10:8-13, & I Corinthians 15:1-11). We deny our self when we love Jesus more than anything, and believe the Gospel from the heart.
He’s calling us to deny any and all opinions we have that are contrary to what the Bible says about what it means to be born-again. The Word of God is our roadmap for living. To deny ourselves means to surrender our will to the will of the Lord. When we are truly born-again by the Spirit of God, He places a desire in our heart to please almighty God, and not almighty self and to yield to the Spirit of God for the help to do that.
Notice the text tells us that this business of denning our self is not a onetime thing. The Lord compels us to do it “daily.” It’s not just a one-time thing!
Each day we have new opportunities and chances to do our ‘own thing’ and disobey the Lord so we must keep our faith and attention where it belongs, on Him, on God’s Word and faith in the finished work Jesus did on the cross.
In Matthew 10:37-39 Jesus said if we refuse to deny the things we want over the way the Lord instructs us to live, we’re “Not worthy of Him.” In other words, we’re not worthy of the blessings that come to us from the Lord’s victory at the cross, so we are not suitable or deserving to be a Christian!
After He said we’re to deny ourselves, He instructed us to “take up our cross, and follow Him.” He was using a figurative expression here. The cross was an instrument of death. It’s where Jesus died, and this passage is simply telling us to “die” to our will.
Luke 14:-27 tells us: “Whoever does not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”
Taking up our cross, denying our self-will and following Jesus doesn’t come easy. We fail to do it at times. Our Heavenly Father created us with a free will, and there is a battle within us to obey the Lord or obey our stubborn fleshly self that doesn’t want to be denied.
However, when our desire is to “deny our self,” and we fail in that, God is loving, gracious and long suffering. When we seek His help to overcome, He empowers the Holy Spirit to “mortify the deeds of the body” and Romans 8:13 comes alive with in us by the power of God!
Desire Is Key
The bottom line is that even in those times when we fail to deny our self; the Lord honors our heartfelt desire to deny what we want in favor of yielding to and serving Christ. It’s part of our lifelong sanctification process that started when were born-again. The Lord knows we are not perfect, and He stands ready to help us obey this requirement through the Holy Spirit. Bless you my friends!
