Deny Self - Fast

^{ACTS 8:34} Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

What does it mean to deny oneself? Websters 1828 dictionary definition of deny is:
DENY, v.t.

1. To contradict; to gainsay; to declare a statement or position not to be true. We deny what another says, or we deny a proposition. We deny the truth of an assertion, or the assertion itself. The sense of this verb is often expressed by no or nay.

2. To refuse to grant; as, we asked for bread, and the man denied us.

The human being is comprised of three significant parts, a trinity, body soul and spirit. Our body is the obvious flesh and blood visible part of us that is born, then wears out and then eventually expires. Our soul is our intellect our emotions and our volition, the part of us that has the capacity to learn, to love and where we have our personality it is also where we make our decisions from. However our decision making process does share its place also with our spirits, which apart from being born again are dead and non existent. Without our spirit having life we are merely body and soul, much like the rest of the other animals. This is probably why the atheists who do not have life in their spirits conclude that we are evolved from the monkeys etc. but that is another argument for another day.  Our spirit once it has the life of God animating it is the part of us where we are able to communicate with the Lord and where we are able to receive conviction, comfort and guidance from Him as well.
Self is the body and soul part of us, when we deny self we are allowing our spirit to rule, to be the dominant part of us. As one person put it recently, it is like a tug of war within ... Indeed it is and as we deny self we allow our spirit to have control over our decision making part of us and as we follow His leading we find our purpose for our lives and our peace and our joy for living.

The simplest and most effective way to deny self is to fast from food for a particular amount of time. A christian should fast as a matter of lifestyle. When asked when was the last time you have fasted a christian should respond in days or weeks ago, not months or years that would be too long to allow the flesh to reign unchecked.
APPLICATION
I shall fast sometime this week to refresh my spirit and deny self.

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