In the new testament, we see Pharisees and teachers of the law going to every mountain top and temple to talk about God and the scriptures. In other words, they spoke in the second person at all times, just because God hadn’t come down and reconciled Himself to man yet. Jesus however broke that paradigm. Rather than merely talking about God in a second person manner, Jesus only said what the Father told Him to say, and only did what the Father told Him to do.

How was He able to do this? First, Jesus denied himself. He denied and crucified Himself before the foundation of time. This is what Revelation 13:8 is referring to, and we see this to be true each time we see Jesus in action, all the way from His first breath in the manger, to his last breath on the cross – His will wasn’t done, but the Father’s.

Some people say, “Oh well He was God so ofcourse He didn’t mess up. I’m different.” But the Bible tells us that He was fully human, which means that He had human desires, human motives, and also suffered human temptations. But yet, He was still able to only say what the Father told Him to say, and only do what the Father told Him to do. We know what its like to want to tell a joke because something’s funny to us. But in that moment, we have to ask Jesus, “Lord, what do you want to say on Facebook in this moment? I know that I want to make fun of this guys haircut, but I acknowledge that You have me on this earth to let God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So what would you say on Facebook?” Most times, Jesus will say nothing. While we won’t hear Him audibly say, “NOTHING”, He will remove the urge for us to make fun of someone’s haircut.

While that example looks at the words we say, Jesus also denied his motives. Same with our goals and our desires.

All of the above needs to be done in order to truly deny ourselves. This isn’t just a one time thing like the modern church makes “getting saved” seem to be. This is a daily process, as Paul described it, “I die daily.” This means that there can be some days that we deny ourselves, and Jesus lives inside of us, and others where He doesn’t because we didn’t deny ourselves, making us out to be like motels instead of homes. The Lord showed me one day that Paul’s letter to Philemon was actually Jesus speaking to us, and in 1:22, we see that Jesus is requesting that we prepare a guest room for Him to live inside of us. In other words, deny ourselves.

The moral of this story is that most Christians introduce themselves to people and talk about Jesus. This is because they haven’t denied themselves, resulting in most people being turned off from the idea of Jesus. But those who actually follow Jesus by denying themselves and taking up their cross on a daily basis simply introduce people to the Father. Show, don’t tell.