EVERYONE OF US who are regenerate will remember the moment we were undone in the presence of a holy God; how undeserving we were (and still are) of God’s compassion when all along He would have been perfectly just to withhold such mercy in allowing sin and its consequences to claim us for eternity. I’m sure we would all confess to other moments of pride swarming in our hearts when discriminating others from the grace of God. Who are we to withhold love and grace from others that ‘don’t deserve it’ when we, being so undeserving ourselves, are unceasing recipients of God’s abounding mercy and benevolence? The frequentness of being beside ourselves after seeing the wretchedness of our own hearts in the light of God will remedy our self-righteous rendering of any man or woman being beyond the reach of God’s grace.

Part of denying self is to love others who have hurt us. The further on we go in our walk with God, we shall become less susceptible to how others mistreat us and less inclined to fighting for our rights – “I don’t deserve to be treated this way” or “Who does he think he is?”

We will never arrive at a place where we shall merit the love of God; forever we shall be in debt to God’s mercy. The times we think we can earn God’s favour are when we are the furthest away from God and are yet simultaneously the very moments God is being merciful and patient toward us in our self-righteousness. Only in Christ, by His own merits, are we ever approved unto God.

Pseudo-Christianity declares that we choose our own cross, but to be a disciple of Christ entails we trustingly leave the choosing to Him. Before any cross, by Divine choice, be picked up and carried, self must first be laid down: “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself…” Our trials and suffering will come in the most unlikely ways and often times through others we would least expect. Trials are not mock exams; they are real to test the genuineness of our profession. Truths that are not tasted through fire lay like unread books in the library of our minds and we know when the refining proves fruitful by truths gained through the flames; we may have read them a hundred times, but now they speak life.

Through the cross (the very disciplines we are inclined to dread) comes life unimaginable. “The way to spiritual prosperity”, says Arthur Neil “is through serious adversity.” In the world, death means loss, but in God’s economy it is the other way round – “He who loses his life, for My sake, will find it” – and that not only pertains to the body per se. A preacher once said that, “It is harder to live for Christ than to die for Him.” Self-denial is a life-long commitment; martyrdom, brutal and ferocious as it may be, last minutes or hours instead of years. The purpose of the cross is to consume our dross and to refine our faith that out-costs the world’s gold. It is not merely for ourselves, but that through us others are too brought to glory.

It is not a question of whether we are God’s vessel, but are we His servant for Him to pour His life through us, or we demanding how others ought to treat us? Many of us stop at “Treat others as you would be treated” but Christ calls us to carry on treating others well when we are repeatedly denied kind treatment in return. Denying self is not merely forsaking the obvious – vanity, pride, lust and rage; it is not insisting on what is humanly rightful to me – “Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful” (1 Corinthians 13). Denying self is a determination for God to have His way in me. It is an utter impossibility for those without faith to manifest the fruits of the Spirit, but it is certainly the responsibility of every Christian to unconditionally manifest such attributes before the world.

“For God so loved the world…” and as Christ walked so are we to. Of course the world does not deserve mercy, but neither do we; the vilest criminal does not deserve forgiveness and neither do we, for we were all criminals in God’s eyes; we were all enemies of God. The chief of sinners became the greatest of apostles and many of the greatest sinners shall be some of the greatest saints. It is all the grace of God and we can never begin to understand that until we discover how much we have been forgiven and where we were by nature condemned to eternal imprisonment, we have instead been declared free through the Son of God. Who then are we to withhold such love from others what was not rightly ours to receive in the first place?