Does self-denial equal self-hatred?

For many years as a young Christian I struggled terribly with the idea of self-denial. My warped understanding of what the Bible was teaching led to years of great unhappiness, frustration, introspection and an increasingly bitter, fearful attitude to God. If you find yourself having the same struggle, please read on. I hope and pray that  these reflections will help liberate souls from this dark, unproductive prison.  

It seemed to me from what I read in the scriptures that self-denial equalled self-hatred. Worked out, this meant that my own desires, whatever their end, were to be denied. Conversely, whatever I most disliked or feared seemed most likely to be God’s will for me. Not surprisingly I found it very difficult to feel love God as a result. It seemed God did not love it seemed did not in fact love me at all but wanted to wipe out all trace of me as an individual. Of course, such thoughts only served to increase my sense of guilt that I felt so negatively towards God.

It was only after a long, depressing struggle that God finally broke through to me with the light of his love and helped me to understand the kind of self-denial he desired. Nowhere in the scriptures are we commanded to hate ourselves, nor simply to deny our own desires or needs as if the denial of them were an end in themselves. Denying ourselves is always linked to affirming someone else (the Lord), and the denial of our own desires to some alternative, positive action. Jesus had commanded in Matt 16:24 when he said that ‘if anyone would come after me he must ‘deny himself, take up his cross and follow me’ (Matt 16:24) and this is what Peter tells Jesus he and the disciples have done in Matt 19:26: ‘We have left everything to follow you!’ Jesus himself, the ultimate example of self-denial, did not simply deny himself for its own sake, but ‘…for your sakes became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich’ (2 Cor 8:9)  and ‘…for the joy set before him endured the cross’ (Heb 12:2).

What I believe the Bible is commanding is an attitude of joyful, liberated self-forgetfulness that comes from being entirely secure in our knowledge of who we are in Christ and of God’s love for us, overwhelmed by what God has done for us and sure of our future in heaven. Such a person simply doesn’t need to keep thinking about themselves. Such a person will be willing to put their own desires and needs second when the glory of God or the needs of others demand it. The Bible teaches us such self-denial for the sake of others, but never teaches a blanket denial of all our desires nor makes denial of our desires a spiritual end in itself, except those desires that are inherently sinful. In fact, in Colossians 2 Paul criticises such teachings because they delude people that they are doing the right thing and do nothing to curb true sinfulness.

Striving to hate ourselves only serves to focus our attention on ourselves more than ever, embitters us against a good and loving God and traps us in endless introspection. A self-forgetful person has their attention and affections taken up with Christ. Instead of producing miserable, dutiful Christians such a mindset produces Christians who are winsome, joyful and effective.

The length of grace

God is so good to us. When we've strayed from him and just begin to step just a few feet back towards him, like the father of the Prodigal Son he is watching out and runs miles to meet us. Yet so often in our own relationships we are only prepared to meet people half way, and even then have got the tape measure out to make sure the other person isn’t a few inches short of the mark. How truly amazing is God’s grace – where would we be if it were not for his mercy?

'The preacher was rubbish...'

A visitor - a young man - stepped into an Essex church one Sunday morning. He was a seeker and he’d been to several of the churches in town recently, looking for answers. The church was in an obscure neighbourhood, in a back street. The general consensus was that the folks who went there were a bit weird. They were given a wide berth by people who went to the local churches.  The man sat down at the back of the freezing chapel. By the time the service was due to start, there were still only a handful of people there. There was no organ or music group, just singing. At the start of the service there was a commotion as apparently minister had been detained and was unable to lead the service; eventually a wiry little man volunteered to speak. He really wasn’t a clever fellow, barely able to read the text and speaking in broad Essex.  His ‘message’ consisted mostly of repeating his text because he had very little else to say. By ten minutes in he had run out of things to say. As if things weren’t bad enough, the speaker then decided to single out the visitor from the whole congregation and said to him, ‘Young man, you look really miserable! – and you will always feel miserable if you don’t obey my text.’

No doubt the rest of the congregation thought to themselves, ‘Why didn’t God send this visitor on a different week when the pastor was here? He is an excellent preacher!’ Perhaps they rued the decision not to cancel the service altogether. The preacher’s efforts were really so dreadful - it was bound to have put this visitor off.

And yet it did not put the newcomer off. In fact the man’s simple appeal to his text of ‘Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth…’ struck right to the heart of this man and he trusted Christ there and then in that service. The newcomer’s name was Charles Spurgeon, who went on to become one of the greatest preachers of the gospel this country has ever know and through whose ministry God brought tens of thousands to faith in himself. You can read Spurgeon’s own record of the man’s simple message and how it spoke to his need here. http://www.banneroftruth.co.uk/pages/articles/article_detail.php?1385

Next time you are tempted to write a preacher off, bear this story in mind. Whether just chewing over the morning’s sermon at the Sunday dinner table, discussing the latest conference speaker or considering a candidate for a new minister, we would do well to examine the criteria we judge by. So often we still think as the world does.  We want our preachers to be eloquent speakers with engaging personalities, able to move people’s emotions, educated,  conversant with contemporary culture and  masters of theological matters, but this story reminds us that the work of conversion is all of God and the effectiveness of a preacher's ministry is not determined by his gifts but by the working of the Spirit of God.