Another reason that we balk at the call to self-denial is that it seems so unnatural not to care for ourselves. There is an element of our concern for ourselves that is not sinful, but rather just human. Paul talks about this in reference to husbands loving their wives, “husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.” (Eph 5:28-9). There is nothing wrong with nourishing and cherishing the flesh in this statement. Paul is referring to an obvious aspect of how we live.

We stumble if we approach self-denial as something that we are supposed to do or accomplish. We react against this because we do not want to stop nourishing and cherishing our flesh. Is it wrong to do things that are pleasurable? Am I to forgo all of the good pleasures that God put into his creation in order to be a disciple of Jesus? Is the desire that we have for the good things of life something we need to put to death in ourselves? That sounds more Buddhist than Christian. Or it sounds like the dualistic view of the material and spiritual that fueled the monastic ascetic movement, a view that taught people to hate their own flesh.

The language of hate takes me back to Luke 14 and Jesus’ call to hate family and even your own life in order to be his disciple. Jesus is not teaching that we are to hate our own flesh with an ascetic lifestyle. This is a teaching on priorities and ultimate allegiances. We see this when Jesus uses hate language when teaching on money in Lk 16:13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” It is about who you will ultimately serve when push comes to shove. So hating our selves is about choosing allegiance to God over our selves when that is the choice that we face.

Applying this to our desire for success at work, it is not wrong to desire and pursue success at work. We do not need to despise success at work unless (and until) the pursuit of success at work is at odds with serving and pleasing God. And this is something that is going to happen in our lives. That is why Jesus teaches that self-denial is a requirement for all who would want to be his disciple. Self-denial is not a requirement for becoming a disciple of Jesus, as if you must embrace a life of constant self-denial in order to follow Jesus. It is something that will be required to accomplish your desire to follow Jesus because there will be times when self-denial is necessary to continue following Jesus. Just like enough materials are needed to complete a tower and sufficient troop strength is needed to defeat an enemy.

I think it might be significant that Jesus uncharacteristically uses examples that his audience is not going to encounter in their lives. Which of them will build a tower or be a king going into battle? So why use these examples? Common to both is the threat of an enemy. This is obvious with the king going to battle and the reason to build a tower is to have a vantage point to see an enemy who is coming against you. I think this points to the idea that self-denial is necessary to defeat Satan in his efforts to distract us and tempt us away from serving God. If we are not able to embrace self-denial, then Satan will successfully distract us from following Jesus.

I think we can count on the fact that success at work and following Jesus are not always going to align in our lives because Satan has the ability to appeal to our desire for success at work in order to take us off the path of discipleship. The only way to continue on the discipleship path when that happens is to despise (think little of ) success at work. But this does not mean that we are to never care about being successful in our work. Can you see the distinction?

I would love to connect with you about these posts if they have stirred any thoughts or questions. Take a minute, shoot me an email at bo@leavenedlives.org, and let’s see where that takes us.