Perhaps it may surprise some of my readers to learn that the word “deny” appears only 24 times in the entire Bible. The word “denied” appears 19 times, and the word “denying” appears 4 times, for a total of 47 times that any form of this word is used in the entire Bible. Most of the advertisement world of our era keeps saying that one should not “deny himself” of whatever product is being sold. While it certainly is not wrong to advertise good products, it certainly is wrong for any who would follow Christ to fail to “deny” themselves. Luke 9:23 says: “And He said to them all, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”
What I am saying may sound like “old school” to some of my readers, and I agree that they are right, but all “old school” material is not wrong! We still follow certain mathematical rules that were laid down for us many centuries ago, so why would some cry: “old outdated information” concerning Bible truths? Jeremiah 6:16 says, “Thus saith the LORD, stand in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for our souls. But they said, we will not walk therein.” I always perk up my spiritual ears when I read something in the Bible that begins with: “Thus saith the LORD”. This is specially true when I am reading in the Old Testament and the word “LORD” is spelled with all capital letters, for this has the word “JEHOVAH” behind it in the Hebrew Language Bible. Should this not interest some of my readers, I will go farther to say that the name JEHOVAH means: “The Self-existent One”, thus showing that God exists, and that He has always existed of Himself. Do I understand this? No, but I certainly do believe it. After all, I would rather believe that God is eternal, than to believe that matter is eternal, as some believe. At any rate, God is speaking to Jeremiah, and giving him a lesson.
We see that God told Jeremiah to stand in the ways, which seems to indicate a standing at the crossroads and seeking to take the right road. At this point, God told Jeremiah to “see”, or to pay attention to the route he would take. Then God told him to ask for the old paths. Notice that the word “paths” is plural, indicating that there are several old paths that one needs to travel. I am amazed at the advertisement world’s use of the words “new and improved”, yet I have no “bone to pick with them” about that expression, for some things are “new and improved”, but some things should never be changed, especially in the spiritual world. I love things that have been around for a long time and are still in good shape, for such is the message of God given in the Bible! The next thing God told Jeremiah was that he should walk in the old paths, since they were tried and proven to be true and best!
Perhaps I should make the distinction clear concerning “religion” and “Christianity”, for religion can mean almost anything, but Christianity means only one thing, that Jesus Christ is Lord of all and desires to be the Lord of every human life! To get to the heart of true Christianity one must understand that only Jesus Christ can be the head and heart of it! For one to be a “dedicated Christian”, there must be the matter of denying oneself, or dying to self, and that is a different “ball game”, in which most professing Christians do not care to participate! It is hard to deny self, for the world always keeps telling us that we deserve better than what we are receiving, thus we need to “take charge” of our own lives and learn to enjoy ourselves, since nobody else seems to care whether we life or die, sink or swim. There is One Who cares, and His name is Jesus! He has a better plan for our lives than we do, and He says we need to deny ourselves! (To be continued) By J. Briggs King, Rainsville, AL (678) 451-0921