“It is only when you deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow your Lord that you begin to experience the transcendent humanity for which you were created. Remember, Christ’s call to you is a rescue.
In asking you to deny yourself and follow, He is giving to you what you could never earn or achieve on your own. You will not find it in your marriage, in parenting your children, in accumulating possessions, in the esteem of friends, in theological knowledge, or in the most beautiful location.
Christ offers you what you cannot earn and what the physical creation can never offer: the all-surpassing glory of knowing Him. This is the world’s best prize. This is the universe’s best meal. This is the only thing that will give life meaning and fill you with lasting joy.
The final question: in your everyday situations and relationships, where are you finding it hard to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Christ?”
–Paul David Tripp, A Quest For More: Living For Something Bigger than You(Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2008), 121.
