Matthew 16:24 -- On Self-Denial and Transformation

"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."
Matthew 16:24


I think there is something interesting about self-denial being essential to salvation... the idea of sacrifice encompassed in the atonement but also in so many things leading up to that, and since. The symbolic blood sacrifice of animals was one representation, but moved on to a sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit (see 3 Nephi 9:19-20)... and I don't think that we really grasp that idea very often.

Most of us are enormously selfish people, thinking that we should get our way with everything, and we have a hard time admitting our faults, let alone giving up our own desires and plans in order to serve others or serve God. Intellectually we might understand that doing so will bring us closer to our own personal ideal, or the greatest potential that we have, but another part of ourselves wants the world's answer that we shouldn't have to give up anything, and that we can have whatever we want or go with whatever we feel in the moment... that compromise is archaic nonsense and that if God isn't "meeting our needs" that we should shuffle off elsewhere.

The truth, of course, is that God is teaching us not only salvation, but love. He sacrificed for us, and we sacrifice for him... that's not some sort of broken masochistic brainwashed dishrag crawling that we have to stand up and shed in order to truly live. That's love, and learning how to stretch our boundaries and accept others as part of ourselves. Christ didn't want, at least there for a moment, to complete the atonement. It was his Father's will that he went through with, not his own. Likewise, as we follow him, we aren't always going to want to. Sometimes going to church might feel like a chore, or fulfilling a calling, or reading our scriptures, or praying, or whatever commandment or principle we're currently butting our head against. :) ... Or harder things. But even with the hardest, as we persevere, we learn why those things are asked of us. We enlarge our hearts and our minds and become better people, have better relationships, live better lives.

In the end, what we give up, no matter how enormous, will be made up for by the joy and happiness and *better* things on the other side. God asks for self-denial, not self-erasure... improvement, not obliteration. Prioritizing God's will over our own might make some things fall out of our lives, yes, but not the core of who we are. He will add and build up as well, only cutting away the parts that are holding us back. Today, let's listen to him and not the world. Let's let go of our own desires enough to open ourselves to his teaching and his transformation.