Whether or not your faith tradition practices Lent, and whether or not you’ve heard of the recent “21 Day Fix” fitness rage, your soul can benefit from building muscle in the area of saying “no.” This is a vital exercise because when Jesus tells us in Matthew 16 to deny ourselves to be His disciple, he’s telling us that the most direct path to fulfillment in following Him is the path of saying “no” to ourselves.
Of course we can’t “give up” our way into a relationship with Christ, as in, achieve salvation through denial and sacrifice. Jesus did that for us. Our way to a relationship with Christ is to believe and accept what He did. And in our belief, we acknowledge Jesus’ instruction to deny ourselves. But here’s the rub: We will think about what it means to “deny ourselves” and we will do our best to live that out. We may pursue heavenly goals and seek to practice the spiritual disciplines, but we somehow still cling to things of our self. Deep down, or maybe even not so deep down, we want things like significance, influence, comfort.
Without thinking, we will “save” some of those things back for ourselves. When we do this, we may not miss out on heaven, but will miss out on being a full-on disciple of Jesus, which is the sweet spot of abundant life.
This is why it’s good to celebrate the Lenten season, which began a few days ago on Ash Wednesday (Feb. 10). Whether we are practicing a 40-day discipline or not, it’s good to have a period that serves as a “fitness surge” for our souls. So, where do you need to build your muscle of “no”?
List 2-3 desires you can say “no” to today. These can be innocent desires (your favorite chocolate or go-to snack) or more destructive desires (lust, temper). The key: start saying “no.” Your soul will thank you.
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