{"id":1327,"date":"2017-02-07T09:55:03","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T09:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/?p=1327"},"modified":"2017-02-07T09:55:03","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T09:55:03","slug":"deny-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/?p=1327","title":{"rendered":"Deny Yourself!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It is very difficult for us to change a bad habit or poor attitude. We know ourselves so well that we become comfortable with ourselves. Comfortable with complacency. Comfortable in doing “just enough.” We avoid going the “extra mile” and any personal sacrifice because its disrupts our agenda of comfort. It makes us feel like we are losing control. <\/p>\n

We are people with “hope” and we should embrace change. We are not perfect, but we are in the process of being perfected in Christ. The adversary to our faith is a culture that promotes individualism and criticism. Though our parts have different functions, the goal of the Body of Christ is unity – to become like Jesus. We need to rid ourselves of our personal agendas for His will to be done in our lives. “To serve and not be served!” <\/p>\n

Each day is a new creation of God’s mercy to give us time to love one another. The seed of all sin is selfishness. If planted, it will raise a crop of suffering and death. Idleness, personal comfort, and doing just enough is not living – it’s surviving. Looking to fill the needs of others, being truly kind, enjoying the opportunities to sacrifice personal comfort to help others, these are Christ-like actions and they reflect passionate, dedicated followers of Jesus. <\/p>\n

Matthew 16:23-25
\n“But Jesus turned and said to Peter, \u201cGet behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me. For you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.\u201d Then Jesus told His disciples, \u201cIf anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.<\/b> For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.\u2026 ” (Berean Study Bible)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is very difficult for us to change a bad habit or poor attitude. We know ourselves so well that we become comfortable with ourselves. Comfortable with complacency. Comfortable in doing “just enough.” We avoid going the “extra mile” and any personal sacrifice because its disrupts our agenda of comfort. It makes us feel like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[239,95,241,242,240,237],"class_list":["post-1327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-worship","tag-agenda","tag-comfort","tag-denial","tag-deny","tag-habits","tag-hurts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfZYJd-lp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1327"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1349,"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327\/revisions\/1349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}