SELF DENIAL OF CHRIST----JOHN FLAVEL

The self-denial of Christ is the pattern of believers, and their conformity unto it is their indispensable duty. “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2Co 8:9). Jesus Christ, for the glory of God, and the love He bare to the elect, denied Himself all the delights and pleasures of this world…He was all His lifetime in the world, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa 53:5). “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Mat 8:20). Yet this was the least part of Christ’s self-denial: What did He not deny when He left the bosom of His Father, with the ineffable delight and pleasures He there enjoyed from eternity, and instead thereof to drink the cup, the bitter cup of His Father’s wrath, for our sakes? O Christians, look to your pattern, and imitate your self-denying Savior.