======================================================================== AUGUST 10. SELF-DENIAL by J.R. Miller ======================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Then Jesus said to His disciples: If anyone would come after Me — he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me!" Matthew 16:24 There are few things at which people enact greater farces — than in their feeble and foolish efforts at self-denial. Very few seem to have the remotest conception of what self-denial is! One does without meat on Fridays, eating fish instead — and thinks that he has denied himself in a most commendable way. Another gives up candy or a certain amusement for forty days in Lent — and is proud of over his great self denial. Others make themselves miserable in various ways: inflicting pain, making useless and uncalled-for sacrifices — as if God were somehow pleased when they suffer! But none of these things constitute self-denial. There is no merit or virtue in . . . giving up anything, suffering any loss or pain, or making any sacrifice — merely for its own sake. True self-denial is the renouncing of SELF — and the yielding of the whole life to the will of Christ. It is SELF — coming down from the heart\ ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/jr-miller/august-10-self-denial/ ========================================================================