Count the Cost
Can you recall a time in your life when you put the interests of others before your own? Maybe letting others go in front of you at the grocery store? Or maybe something more costly than your time? Perhaps you denied yourself some delicacies to help a friend alleviate a financial crisis. The process is pretty straightforward: we bless others, they are encouraged, and we feel good. Praise the Lord! We are called to be a blessing and look for those opportunities to obey. However, do we look with the same tenacity to deny ourselves? The call of our Creator...this is not only the most difficult thing to do with our lives, but apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, it is utterly impossible to practice humility. Jesus plainly stated, “if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mk. 8:34).
In the context of this gospel narrative, Mark is not suggesting a domesticated version of denying ourselves. It is more than denying ourselves something we like during Lent. This is a literal forsaking of self. Forsaking living for ourselves, our desires, and our self-motivated pursuits. Instead, getting behind him, following him towards the death he died. Jesus uses Peter’s rebuke as a teaching moment to admonish the disciples and the crowds that were following him; he was setting the precedent of the cost of the cross. Ironically, Peter would think of this teaching moment when he denied knowing Jesus before he was delivered to Pilate for the very death he predicted (Mk. 14:66–72). In this moment, Peter desired to save his life, so he denied Jesus. However, we know the story. Jesus restores Peter after the resurrection, commissions him, then Peter receives the promised Holy Spirit, and he fulfills the ministry by also dying on a cross–he found life.
Paul picks up that notion of denying ourselves as built into the new covenant; he says that our old self was crucified with Christ, that we would die to sin and walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:1–14). As part of the baptism ceremony, we immerse the believer and say “buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk in the newness of life.” By this, we are acknowledging Christ’s death in our own. This ceremony marks the spiritual life of a Christian dying to oneself and living for Jesus Christ.
We all have the universal call to deny ourselves as stated above; our selfish desires, interests, and motivations. That will look different for each one of us. This is a necessary discipline of becoming like Jesus. He died to himself for our good, that we might have life by him losing his. So let us lose our lives and take up the gospel life that we get to live.
What does counting the cost of denying yourself look like right now? Are there others in your life who know you well enough to speak into this area of your life?
Written by: Michael Van Dyke