And He was saying to them all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.
Luke 9:23 - 24
Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Lose your life. Doesn't really sound appealing, does it?
Dying to self is the hardest thing we must do to follow Christ. Our old nature, though vanquished, left behind powerful old thought patterns and habitual behaviors. It is a constant struggle to yield to the Holy Spirit rather than to the easy, familiar paths of the past. We are terrified that losing ourselves - letting go of our desires, turning over control of our lives to the sovereign God- will make us less ourselves, less of who we want to be.
The truth is that only in letting go - abdicating our self-rule to the rule of the Holy Spirit - that we become who we really are in Christ: reflections of Him, His character growing in us. When we give dominion to the Spirit, God is freed to create in us the person He meant for us to be.
In losing ourselves in Him, we find more than we could ever imagine.
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