We have got to have the power of the Holy Spirit working in us and through us in order to be able to do this. - Yes. - And I think that's the key, right? (upbeat music) - Hello there, you're listening to the Girl Talk podcast. I'm Carol. - I'm Kelly. - I'm Trisha. - We're glad you're here today. We're gonna talk about, and not so popular topic today. - Yeah. - This is tough. - Yeah. - It's very tough. - Hookle up. - Buckle up. - Denying yourself. So there's a scripture that says, "If anyone come after me, let him deny himself. "Take of his cross and follow me, right?" That's kind of where. And I want to just kind of focus in on the denial part because I had a recently, I don't know, moment with God. I don't know that I've ever denied myself anything for the cause of Christ. And I was ashamed by that. - What do you think, what does it mean? What do you mean to deny yourself? - I think we live in a culture that frowns upon us denying ourselves of anything. - We live in the United States of America. So if I want it and I feel like I deserve it, dog on it, I'm gonna go out and get it. - Even if it's a credit card. Even if it's a credit card, even if it's a piece of cheesecake, even it's a new outfit or a new spouse, all the things. We just do not. That is such a counter-cultural term. - I wanna take it one step further too. Sometimes we have all of those things and they're good. Like it's not sin. It's not sin to the things I want that I'm gonna fill the need for, it's not sin. So what I mean is like I have enough money for the dress, so I'm gonna go buy the dress. I have enough, whatever, I'm gonna go do it because I can. And it's not a sin to do it. That's also a slippery slope of not denying ourselves, that we don't even have to take the credit card for it. We don't have to sin and go outside our marriage for the things that we're looking for. We're doing it, but it's still, it's permissible for us. So part of what scripture says, even Paul says, that it may be lawful for me to do it. It may be permissible for me to do it. It may be okay for me to do it, but is it really good for me to do it? So I think we even have to take all of that a step further to say is it good for us, is it good for us to do it? It may be okay, it may not be sin, it may be permissible, but it may not be good. So if you feel like you should deny yourself something and you start to justify it, is that something you need to deny yourself of? - Well, sounds like it. (laughing) - Sounds like there's some stuff underneath that. - Yeah, so here's the example. - Okay, I'll give you a very practical example, and this is not about, I don't want this to be about me, so I'm just gonna give you a quick example, but I felt like God was calling me to give up something, and it's something that is permissible, it's not sin, but God was calling me away from it and calling me to notice how much I turned to that. So it had become a distraction for me instead of something that I turned to in a healthy way. And I think when we come to the point of justifying said thing, which we can do, you talked about it being a slipper, so I have the money for the dress, so I can go get the dress because I want it. That's not denying yourself, a, b, is it not harmful? - The new dress is not harmful if you can afford it. So what does it mean to deny yourself? What does that even look like? We don't even have, I don't think we have a framework to say, here's where we start with denying ourselves. - Yeah, when do you know that you need to deny yourself? Like that, when, are you asking me specifically? - Well, no, I'm bringing that question up because I'm listening to you guys and I'm trying to understand it like you said, I don't know that I have the framework for it. So I'm like, well, do I need to deny myself from that thing or do I not need to deny myself from that thing? How do you parse that out? How do you figure that out? I don't, I'm not sure because. - Yeah, I think so through prayer. - You know, some of the stuff I grew up with in a more augurup in the Methodist tradition and we celebrated Lent every year where we intentionally gave up something in order to focus more on Jesus. And so I think that's part of it. Part of the place is starting with, if the Holy Spirit has not been working already in your heart to say you need to give this up, then maybe setting yourself some sort of time to think about that and to say what is it that I need to give up so that I can focus more on Jesus 'cause that's the point. The point is to, but I, I gotta raise my hand here. - Okay, raise me. - Because scripture says if anyone would come after me, so we all would be coming after Jesus. - Yes. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. It's not, oh, if I feel like it. - Uh-huh, yes, yes. - I feel like it's more of a command. - Uh-huh, okay. - Like if you're coming after me and what part of this is like dying to the old self? Is that the same thing? Or would you say that's two different things? - Seems like it's the same thing or at least overlapping into the same thing. - Okay. - Deny your old self, deny your old habits, deny your old priorities, don't you think it's priorities? - Um, maybe. - No. - Maybe? - Yes. - What are you putting first? - But I don't think any of us would say. - I'm putting my phone first. - Right. - I got it. - But we do, but we do. - We do your point. - Yeah, you know, part of what I think about, okay. Hit me. I mean, actually don't hit me. - Well, your way too far away from you. I actually hit you. I'd have to like reach way over the board. It's not gonna work. What I think about, when I think of deny myself, okay? Is what the disciples did in the early church. And that is that they sold everything they had and gave to each other as each had need. Which to me also says that I am not gonna worry about me. I'm gonna worry about the people around me first, okay? Because it was the command of God. God said, deny yourself. That means if you have a cell phone and somebody else doesn't have a cell phone, then share that cell phone. If you, not that that's really practical. But that's what the early church did. The early church gave up all the stuff they had accumulated. - Yeah. - And let other people have it. - Live empty handed. - Yes, I have a house. And so I'm gonna, yeah, not hold tight to it. I'm gonna release. And I'm gonna say, all right, other believers, other people I trust, you can come and live with me. It's kind of the way I've interpreted kind of what the early church did. And it seems, that seems like super radical. That seems so counter-cultural to the way we live and work and move in our current world. - So do you think deny yourself is more about what you have? - I wouldn't say it's exclusively about what you have. I think it's about all the things you want. - Yeah, I mean, I'm getting where this direction is going and it's really, it sounds like surrender. Surrender, surrender, surrender what you have. Surrender what you think about. Surrender what you want. Surrender your plan. So it can be all of those things. That's hard to live. - Right. - Very hard to live. - Yes. So how do we do it? 'Cause we're called to it. - Yeah. - In short, cricket. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Where, where, where, how do you do it? - You do, I mean, empty yourself. I mean, that's so hard. It's, I think it's a daily surrender. It's a, okay, you got something to do with that. - All right, so I was praying about this episode because it's been like where I've been living lately. And I was praying about this episode. And if you look at the scripture, it says, you know, if anyone come after me.
Let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me. So there's a denial, a duration, and a direction, denial of, you know, you just talked about your desires, your surrender, your old nature, your surrender, the duration daily. Then the direction, follow. Jesus has followed me, you know, and in that respect, I was just thinking about how this looks practically, because one of the things I think we can do is that we can separate ourselves from Scripture and say that happened a long time ago, that doesn't apply to me today, and I don't think that's true. I think there's, you know, there are definitely Scriptures that are descriptive of what happened, and then there's prescriptive Scriptures that tell us how we should do things. And I think this is one of those that says, okay, here's how you follow Jesus. You did that. When you deny yourself, you say no to the things that you want, no to your appetites, denying yourself of that. You do that daily, and you follow what Jesus did, you know. And I think culture has got us into this worldview that we should not be denied of anything. Because, I mean, we have people who are risking their lives to come to the United States, because they feel it's the land of opportunity, and they can have all the things and do all the things that they want to do. And we living here sometimes see the gospel through Western eyes and think that means that we just ought to have everything and get it all for ourselves, right? Yeah. So, one of the main messages that I think our culture teaches that really feeds into this is you deserve this. Oh, yeah. For sure. That's the message. Hey, you've worked hard. You deserve this car. You deserve this vacation. You deserve this, you know, food or whatever it is. And you know, you hear that message enough times you start to believe it, even if it's not true. Absolutely. And there's plenty of people who reinforce that. You were tired. You didn't deserve vacation, cars, all the things. And we're all guilty of that. How many times have I said that? Oh, you've really had a, you've worked really hard, right? Yeah. Rough week, take the day off. Yeah. That's okay. I'll slip into. So, I would just happen to be scrolling through Pinterest one day, looking for something. And I ran across these ideas that kind of put more flesh on the skeleton of what it means to die to self. And I'm going to just go ahead and warn you if these are hard, okay? And you can take correction when you can humbly submit inwardly, as well as outwardly, with no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart that is dying to self. Ouch. Wow. I know. Like, I haven't done that. I haven't, I have not done that today. I know. Today. Yeah. I was just daily. That's right. I know. Okay. Yesterday was really bad for that. How about this one? When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation or record your own good works or itch for praise after an accomplishment, when you can truly love to be unknown, that is dying to self. Wow. That's a day also. That also happened. I know. Same. Very tough. When you lovingly and patiently bear disorder, irregularity, tardiness and annoyance, and endure it as Jesus endured it, that is dying to self. When you are forgotten or neglected and you don't hurt with the insult that your heart is happy, that is dying to self. How do we do this, though? I think it's the work of the Holy Spirit. Oh, absolutely. We can't do this. Like we can't. Our flesh is not working up. Yes. And I think that's the key, right? And how does that come? Well, it comes first with a surrender of your life to Jesus. That's right. That if you don't have Jesus, if you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus, there's no power. There's no Holy Spirit power living in you. You are only doing it in your own power and you can't do it in your own power. You can't save yourself. You can't give yourself hope. You can't give yourself the power to overcome, send the power to deny self because the Holy Spirit is not working in you. You have to give your life to Jesus and surrender to His will for your life and His death on the cross being the payment for your sins and live for Him in order for the Holy Spirit to work in you. And then what? And this is one of those things that I'm not just asking that from just being kind of the devil's advocate on that because I've truly been wrestling with this myself. And I've read several things, listen to some podcasts about it, and I think in Western spirituality especially, we are so used to being able to do for Jesus that that becomes the whole of our relationship with Jesus. And when we can't do these things, we burn out because we don't spend time with Jesus. And here's what I mean by that. I was having this conversation with friend just the other day. And when I struggle the most, please don't ask me about my prayer life. When I struggle the most, please don't ask me how much time I've been in the Word. I was journaling the other day and I am a fits and starts, journaler. I'll do great for a while and then I'll get away from it because I'm too busy. I was journaling the other day and I said that the bottom line with this is, Lord, I don't know how to be with you. Here's what I mean by that. I know how to read Bible verses and record my thoughts and read commentaries and do words that I know how to do all that. But I felt Jesus was saying, I just want you to be with me. I just want you to be with me. I don't know if you've ever had a friend or a spouse or somebody that you love, my mom or dad. And you're going through something and you can just sit in the same room with them. And you don't even have to speak any words, no words are necessary. They get you, they understand you, they can empathize with you and just be in the same space with them makes a difference. That's the idea that came to my mind whenever I said, Lord, I don't know how to be with you. Only know how to do for you. And I think that's why we get so burned out as Christians is that we're doing, doing, doing, doing. And we think that that's going to get us closer to Jesus when that's not going to get us closer to Jesus. That's going to get us burned out. It's being with Jesus, which journaling and prayer and all those things can be a part of that. But I think we are cheating ourselves out of the intimacy of life with Jesus when we only do. Isn't that the difference between religion and relationship? I think in some ways, in some ways, because religion is doing things. We're doing things. We're doing things for God. We're doing things for good reasons. We're doing. We're doing. And we get burned out. But the relationship, the intimacy pieces, the being in his presence. And the idea that I'm getting from what you're saying and it makes such sense is that it's his presence that fills us up. And when we're filled up by his presence, then we don't need to have all the other things. That's the self is put away. It's denied. And that's not a problem because of his presence. But to me, what you're talking about is, is valuing and spending time with the relationship with Jesus. Someone told me one time that I was struggling. It was a season of my life when I was really struggling. And they suggested and shared with me an idea of praying and really visioning in my mind. Just envisioning Jesus sitting right beside me and just literally like holding his hand. That might sound woo-woo-woo to somebody, but it might be just what somebody else needs. So I'm going to say it. But I would just sit there in the mornings on the couch and I would just envision that Jesus was with me. And we know he is. He is with us. But it's just using my mind to understand the truth of the fact that he's with me. And sometimes we need things like little help like that and just imagining that helps me to understand the concept of what you're talking about, just being with him, not asking him for anything, not doing something to get him to like me more. But just. - He's present. - He's present. - Right. - Mm-hmm. - Yep, and not, yeah. Yeah, not just unburdening your soul also. - Right. - You know, I feel like a lot of my time spent with Jesus is me just yapping. You know, I'm just yapping, yapping, yapping, yapping. Tell him to tell you about this thing. Let me tell you about that thing. - Yeah. - And let me ask you for this thing. Let me ask you for that thing. And, but sitting there and just breathing. - Wow, and I y'all know, 'cause I've mentioned it here on the podcast before, I've been trying to practice more silence and solitude, which is hard for me, 'cause I am a loud person. I'm probably the loudest person y'all know, aren't I? - Not always, no. - I'm gonna answer that question. - No, 'cause you would say yes. - I would say no. - 'Cause you're setting us up for failure. - I know, I know. - And I'm okay with that. And for me to sit in silence is probably one of the most difficult things, I'll tell you how difficult it was. When one of my anniversaries here, one of the gifts that they blessed us with was a silent retreat, a personal spiritual retreat, but it's a silent retreat, basically. I did great for everybody. - That's because I knew you needed it. - Probably, I did great for the first evening. The next morning, I showed up at breakfast and you would have thought I was on crack cocaine. I was like, "Hey, what's your name? "Where are you from?" - What is, her deal. 'Cause I just was, I needed people, but it was because of what I was afraid of when I was in the quiet. And so I've been trying to practice that, and I haven't done it very well at all, but I'm gonna tell you that I'm getting better at it. And that's why you call it practice. You practice those things. And as I've practiced it more, and it has been so fruitful in my life, because, I mean, if I'm honest, I don't slow down enough to let my mind catch up with my body most days. - Same. - And so I have fallen prey to the fact that our culture looks at silence and solitude as wasting time, because I'm not, there's nothing physical that I can produce for you and say, "Look, look what I did." And we believe in living lives with no margin, just squeeze in more, more, more, more, more. And it's been a really humbling time for me because God has been taking things away. And the silence has been one of the sweetest gifts. It's still hard, I still don't do it well, but it's been one of the sweetest gifts of this kind of pruning time that I feel like I'm going through. And it's because I think the scripture tells us it's his still small voice, right? And yet we still expect him to have a megaphone or a loudspeaker, and that's just not the way he is. - He just grabs his body. - That's right. - Look, it's right behind us. - Sometimes he shook me for sure. - That's true. - But this time in my life has been so rich and maybe for reasons that no one will ever see. But for me in my spirit to know that I can be honest with God 'cause I'm going to tell you for the most of my life as a Christian, I wasn't very honest with God. And then when my life fell apart, I could be nothing but honest because everybody knew my business, right? And but I spent so long in trying to measure up and trying to be good enough and trying to behave my way to heaven and had it so opposite. And I wish I had gotten that right sooner. Does that make sense? But it's been a sweet gift and it's not an easy gift. - No. - It's one of those things where you know, I remember years ago I heard James Dobson say, sometimes what we need is the hardest thing to get. It's like when you take your kid to the doctor and you know they're gonna get shots. You know, you can't make them understand this is gonna be good for you. Silence and solitude has been like my shot. I knew he was gonna be good for me eventually but I just didn't know if I could go through the pain. - It hurts. - But it's one of those things where I think it goes back to the whole idea of denying yourself, like denying yourself the noise, denying yourself the distraction, denying yourself all those things. It's not punishment 'cause I think when we think of denying ourselves, you think of punishment. It's not punishment, it's actually a gift. - Yeah. - And it's, there are benefits beyond what you can see but I don't know if I'm explaining it well enough. - You get more than you give. - You get more than you give but it, I mean it's, sometimes it's painful in those things that you have to deny yourself of. It's just like if someone is an alcoholic when they deny themselves of alcohol, they're gonna go through a time of withdrawal and that can sometimes be so hard. It's why a lot of people relapse, you know, because they can't go through that pain. They're suddenly feeling things. They're not numbed out anymore. And it's painful for a season but it also brings clarity. And I think that's really how it's been with me as I've made the sacrifice of denying myself of some of those distractions that I turn to so easily. It's been a sweet thing but also hard. Does that make sense to me? - It makes perfect sense. And as I listen to you, I think to myself, I think God works with us in different ways wherever we are because that is a deep spiritual thing that he's working with you on right now. That is, I mean, it's inspiring to me. I want God to show me more because I haven't been seeking ways to deny myself. And I'm what I love. - Well, I wasn't seeking it. Let's just make that abundantly clear. - Well, but you were open to it. - Well, and what I'm realizing is though is, and it means it started very much with what you were tombed out with a fast-for-lint. But here's the thing. God wants it all. And there's some things in my life that he asked me to give up, I don't know if you know this or not, but I'm a huge basketball fan. I know y'all know this. A huge basketball fan. - Go Tar Heels. And during March Madness, during March Madness, he said, I wanted to cancel your TV subscription. And I was like, you want me to do what's that is nuts? I ain't doing that. And he was like, okay. - Was that before or after Caroline lost? - Oh. - Well, they lost in the first round. - Oh wow. - It's not like it was made a difference either way, but it was after they lost. And I was like, but here's the thing. It doesn't even have to be my team. - Yeah. - And he was like, I just look at how much time you're spending watching basketball. What could I do with that time? And dog on it, I canceled my subscription because that was something he wanted to deny me, or he wanted me to deny myself. I had a choice so that he could give me something better. Right? - Well, I love the way that you just said that. You, he didn't say, what could you do at that time? - Yeah. - It was what can I do at that time? - For sure. - Because God's the one doing the thing. - Yeah. - God's the one wooing you in those moments. God's the one showing up in the denial. He's the one showing up in the space because he wants to do a thing. Whatever that thing is, and it's his to know, it's yours to walk through, but it's his to know what he's doing. But he wants to do something in each and every one of us if we'll give him the space to do it. But he wants it all. - Yes. - That's the whole point I was trying to make is that he doesn't want just your thought life or just your what you watch or what you intake or what you, you know, I'm, y'all know, I'm a big reader. I love historical fiction. Nothing wrong with historical fiction. He was like, how much time you spend reading would just on average in a week's time? And so, I say that to encourage you because I think we get this misconception when we come believers that if it's hard, it can't be good. And if it's hard, it can't be godly. And that is so counter to scripture. We're gonna suffer. But I think we think that if anything's hard or if it's difficult or we can't, the denying yourself is difficult. - Yes. - And Jesus calls us to that. So I just wanna, if you're having some idea about something that you wanna try and if God is saying it, 'cause if you try it on your own, I mean, you can avoid anything for a couple of days. But if you commit to giving that up for a period of time and just see what God will do with that time, do it because God has told you to not because I've told you to or encouraged you. These are things for you to think about. And ask Jesus, 'cause he'll tell you and don't be afraid when it gets hard. Because it is gonna be hard. That's where growth happens. That's where the good things come from. Is there anything else that you would add to the conversation?
conversation about denying yourself before we wrap things up here. I think God meets us right where we are, and not everybody is going to be hearing the same words from God because God is so personal, but He is talking to each and every one of us. It may not be cancel your TV, but it may be stop that relationship or put me first, and so it may be different, but it's going to be just what we need. Yeah, and I so desperately want that, you know, I want to be, I want to live open-handed. I don't want to live clutching my thoughts, my opinions, my ideas, my will, my stuff, my all of it. I really, truly want to release, and I think that beginning to deny yourself, just even if it's something small that the Lord takes away first, that that's a good thing, that's a good first step to take to be able to release all of it, because it doesn't happen overnight, you know, it doesn't, you don't just give up everything and deny yourself everything and stick with it on day one, you know, it really has got to be a process, and it's slowly opening up your hands to be able to give it away. More like a garden, yes, you have to tend to garden, pull the weeds, you have to put the seeds in the ground, but then it's up to God, you know, you have to put in the work, but God brings the rain that we need and grows that in our hearts and in our lives. Hey, we'd love to hear your thoughts about denying yourself, dying to yourself. If you got things you'd like to share with us, you can email us at
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