Right self-denial can issue in soul health. Self-indulgence will eventually sicken the whole person ending in spiritual death, and perhaps physical disease and physical death. When your self wants what is not good for its self, one must say “no” to self, no matter how much the self wants to express itself contrary to the teachings of Christ. You and I can’t follow the teachings of Jesus without self-denial. From the Christian perspective the goal of self-denial ends in the death of our sick self, the selfish self. We need to die before we die. Baptism calls for it. When the sick self dies, God gives us back a cleansed self. Paul called it sanctification (Romans 6). Jesus called it losing yourself and finding yourself. Clinging to one’s self ends in spiritual and emotional sickness; choose, instead, the path to health and wholeness.
“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Mark 8:34-35 (NASB)
