Deny Yourself

Deny Yourself

Kagawa Toyohiko, a Japanese Christian reformer of the early twentieth century, chose to leave his wealthy educated class and move into the Shinkawa slum in Kobe to live among the poorest of the poor. He was twenty-one. He nearly died of tuberculosis and trachoma during those years. But he wrote: 'I am grateful beyond measure for the discipline of suffering. I have learned to see Christ in the faces of the poor. And I have learned what denial costs — and what it gains.' He went on to become one of the most influential social reformers in Japanese history. The cross-shaped life he lived produced a harvest invisible to anyone who had watched him descend into the slums.

Jesus' call to discipleship in Luke 9:23 has three components: deny yourself, take up your cross, follow. Each phrase deserves attention. Deny yourself is not self-hatred; it is the deliberate subordination of self-will to Christ's will. Take up your cross — note that Jesus says 'your' cross, not His. Each person has their own specific form of the cross-shaped life, unique to their calling and circumstances. Daily — not a single act of heroism but a recurring, daily choice. And follow — forward movement toward Christ, not mere adherence to a code. Discipleship is not complicated, but it is costly. The self-denial Jesus describes is not self-deprecation; it is the radical reorientation of the center of our lives from self to Christ.