Losing the 'false' self

Matthew 16 : 24 - 28

..whoever would save his life will lose it...

Denying self is not something our cultural norm would encourage us to do. It is too negative the experts say and instead we should claim ourselves and try to always be more than we can be. This is true if we are speaking about our psychological identities, our mental health. However, the Teacher of the Way tells us about an identity that we need to 'lose' and 'deny' in order to follow him. I think Jesus meant that we need to 'lose' and 'deny' the false identity that we wear as a mask in order to define ourselves. It is an identity that we have put on through the years in order to 'survive' the many hurts and insecurities we have experienced in this world. And this identity works well for many of us, much of the time - in fact, it gets us the affirmation we desire, and it brings us what we want from life.

But Jesus sees the falseness of living in this way. And he tells his followers that they need to give up that 'self- made' identity, to lose and deny it, in order to follow him. He wants his followers to take on a new 'spiritual identity' or rather to reclaim the 'spiritual identity' that we, being made in the image and likeness of God have always had. It is ours. Only that we have preferred the identity that we made ourselves, to the one given to us. In claiming our true identity, we grow into truly humble persons, persons described as 'pure of heart' who can 'see' God. This humility will allow us to accept whatever God brings into our lives, in the context of giftedness. We are able to even 'take up our cross' with peace and joy, because we see it as part of the gifted way of following Christ.

Loss is gain.