I thought the more I cleaned myself up, the more worthy I'd be

I thought I had to draw near to Him, for Him to draw back to me

But He's the bread in my lungs when I'm gasping for air

Mark chapter 8, Jesus makes one of His most challenging and yet liberating statement in verse 34 and He says "Whosoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."

Now, you could never love yourself as much as God loves you. And this is the precise reason God hates selfishness.

Selfishness lowers the bar and the standard of how valuable you are in God's eyes

In fact, selfishness brings a corrupt standard, So when you try to love yourself, it will never come close to how God loves you

But when you deny yourself, you find the Christ who gave Himself for you

When you deny yourself, God reveals the liberating truth to you of how valuable you are to Him

A life laid down invites the Christ who is lifted up

Philippians 2 says, let nothing be done with selfish ambition

And you see, wherever scripture challenges you the most, it means that grace is waiting for you to accomplish the most in you

It is an invitation to freedom, actually, and not a challenge

When you deny yourself, you come into a revelation of Christ that reveals your own worth in Him

The revelation of Christ leads us into a realm of worship that no self-effort could ever produce

Friends, there's a chamber, a secret place, waiting for us in the abasing of ourselves

I don't serve Christ today to get a breakthrough tomorrow, I serve Christ today because He's worth everything, every day

In John 15 verse 9, Jesus says, as the Father has loved me, I love you. And He says, abide in my love

Because you see, the enemy is always banking on you loving yourself more than you love God

And if you love yourself more than you love God, your obedience will always be compromised by your personal desire instead of kingdom desires

And if we would just realize that with God, the prize is always greater than the price

Surrender is only a sacrifice if you're in love with the world

Surrender is a privilege if you're in love with God

And that is why self-denial is not a burden of sorrow, It is actually an offering of eternal reward

Self-denial is a gift, it's an invitation into seeing how loved you truly are, and how glorious Jesus really is

Have a blessed day friends!