That is the resurrection life, you have to die to get it. You have to die to enter there, we die to our sin, we die to ourselves, we die to the opinions of man. And we die to the old world, we die to fear of spooks and demons and devils, and prove the truth of the text. Greater is He that is in you, Then he that is in the world.
Self-Denial
Arthur W. Pink
The severest self-denials and the most lavish gifts are of no value in God’s esteem unless they are prompted by love.
N.T. Wright
Lent is a time for discipline, for confession, for honesty, not because God is mean or fault-finding or finger-pointing but because he wants us to know the joy of being cleaned out, ready for all the good things he now has in store.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Self-denial means knowing only Christ, and no longer oneself. It means seeing only Christ, who goes ahead of us, and no longer the path that is too difficult for us… . Self-denial is saying only: He goes ahead of us; hold fast to him.
Tertullian
Evildoers delight in hiding themselves; shun appearing; are bewildered when discovered; being accused, deny; not even when tortured, readily or always confess; certainly mourn when condemned; sum up against themselves, impute either to fate or to the stars the impulses of a wicked mind; for they will not have that to be their own, which they acknowledge to be evil. But what doth the Christian like this? None is ashamed, none repenteth, save that he was not such long ago. If he be marked down, he glorieth; if accused, maketh no defense; being questioned, confesseth even of his own accord; being condemned, giveth thanks. What manner of evil is this, which hath not the natural marks of evil, fear, shame, shrinking, penitence, sorrow? What manner of evil is this, whereof he that is accused rejoiceth?
Floyd McClung
The whole point of being “crucified with Christ” is that we are liberated from self-rule, self-preservation, and self-promotion (Gal. 2:20; 6:17).
Gene Edwards
Consider Jesus. As you are crucified, watch Him handle His crucifixion. Your Lord bequeathed to you an example of the high art of being crucified. Behold how He reacted to betrayal, to lies, to false witnesses. Jesus Christ absorbed these pains, even as they added the shamefulness of being crucified in public. Humiliated, degraded, defamed, tortured and then murdered. That day he raised acceptance of the cross into an art form. He learned to accept all things from the hand of His Father.
John Flavel
When the corn is nearly ripe it bows the head and stoops lower than when it was green. When the people of God are near ripe for heaven, they grow more humble and self denying.
Alan Redpath
Whenever a man has seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ…at once he comes right into a head-on collision within his own personal living, with all of his principles and motives upon which he has lived until this moment…. if there is to be a continual manifestation of Holy Spirit life, there must be a constant submission to the crucifixion of the flesh, not simply sometimes, but always.
John Stam
Shall we retreat and turn back from our high calling in Christ Jesus; or dare we advance at God’s command in face of the impossible?…Let us remind ourselves that the Great Commission was never qualified by clauses calling for advance only if funds were plentiful and no hardship or self-denial involved. On the contrary, we are told to expect tribulation and even persecution, but with it victory in Christ.