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It is our hope and prayer that you will allow the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ to move you toward spiritual maturity with the food of God’s Word. The Bible says you are to be, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” (1 Peter 2:2-3) The author of the Book of Hebrews tells us, “..solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:14) Christians who feed upon the Word of God are skilled in living for the Lord in ways that cause others to consider their relationship with Jesus Christ. Prayerfully consider studying God’s Word!
Current CrossRoads Article:
The Christian’s Passion
“Denying Oneself”
There is a
tale of the great English actor Macready.
Macready was once asked by a preacher; “What is the difference between you
and me?” You see the actor appeared
before crowds night after night proclaiming fiction and people listened with
delight. The preacher spoke of the
essentials and the unchanged truths of God, yet, most listened with no passion
upon their hearts. Macready’s answer was
this, “I present fiction as though it were true; you present truth as though it
were fiction.”
Over the
course of time the cancers of legalism, traditionalism, denominationalism and
faddism will choke the life out of a church.
True believers do not want a church that has only a form of godliness but
denies the truth and power of God (2 Timothy 3:5). It is a necessity that the
Jesus has
this description of what is to be expressed in the child of God who is
passionate for Him, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself… For whoever
wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for
the gospel will save it. What good is it
for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his
soul?” (Mark 8:34-37) This
is a very powerful truth presented by Christ which enables the child of God to
express a life of passion for Him and it begins with “denying oneself.”
If there is anyone who deserves our
attention, our loyalty, our time, our money, our efforts, our adoration, our
devotion, our worship and praise, it is Jesus Christ. The Christian’s passion is to accomplish the
complete will of God for him and he must have a desire in his heart to die to
self-will. “Deny” (Greek aparneomai)
means to disown, disregard, forsake, renounce, or reject. The application is to subdue the flesh and
bring it under submission to the Highest authority. This is not negative, such
as denying oneself something, but rather it is positive action. It is saying “No” to self in order to say “Yes”
to what Jesus Christ wills you to do.
This enables you to let Jesus be truly Lord of your life allowing you to
enjoy the benefits of being a child of God. People all too often forfeit God’s best for
them by not denying self.
The apostle Paul knew the joys,
victories and blessings of denying self to achieve God’s will for him; every
child God has the same opportunities that the apostle Paul had. The key to accomplishing this is through
mortification of the flesh. The apostle
Paul exhorts the church with this, “For if you live according to the sinful
nature, you will die; but if by the Holy Spirit you put to death the misdeeds
of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13). Paul also wrote, “Those who belong to Christ have crucified the sinful nature
with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24).
Do you have a passion for
Christ? Does it reflect a life of
self-denial to sin and the influences of this world? If not, sacrifice your life to Him, He
sacrificed His for you!
We pray the Risen Christ is alive in YOUR heart today!
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