_But you yourself are to do it_. Do not say you cannot, for you alone can. If you would be His disciple--His holy, loving, pure, worthy disciple--you must deny _yourself_. Cry to Him for help as much as you will--you cannot cry too often or too long--but you must do more than that: you must arise, and deny your own selfish nature; pinch, and harass, and refuse your own inward sins, and expose them to the light of God. Confess them without ceasing, mortify them without mercy, and slay them, and give no quarter. Say, and say in earnest:-- Oh, how I hate these lusts of mine That crucified my God!-- These sins that pierced and nailed His flesh Fast to the fatal wood. Yes, my Redeemer, they shall die-- My soul has so decreed; I will not longer spare the things That made my Saviour bleed. Whilst with a melting, broken heart, My murdered Lord I view, I'll raise revenge against my sins, And slay the murderers too. II. _There are Denials of the Will_. Human nature is a collection of likes and dislikes. The great mass of men are governed by their preferences. What they like, they strive after; what they do not like, they neglect, or refuse, or resist. Many of these preferences, though not harmful in themselves, lead continually to that subjection of the will to self-interest, and help that self-satisfaction and self-love which are the deadly enemies of the soul. Now, true self-denial is the denial, for Christ's sake and the sake of souls, of these preferences. To say to God: "I sacrifice my way for Thy way--my wish for Thy wish--my will for Thy will--my plan for Thy plan--my life for Thy life"--this is self-denial. Nothing can be more acceptable to a good father's heart than the knowledge that his son, living and labouring far away from him amid difficulties and opposition, is courageously sacrificing his own preferences, and faithfully seeking to carry out his, the father's, will. In such a son that father sees a reproduction of all that is strongest and best in his own nature. And so it is with the Heavenly Father. No greater joy can be His than to see the resolute surrender of His children's own will to His, and the daily denial of their hopes and plans for themselves and theirs in favour of His plans. III. _There are Denials of the Affections_. The precious things of earth-- The mother's tender care, The father's faith and prayer-- From Thee have birth. And, just because love is of such high origin, and is the greatest power in human life, it is often captured and held by the Devil as his last stronghold against God. The heart is at once the strongest and the most sensitive part of our nature; and it is here, therefore, that we often find the most blessed and profitable opportunities for self-denial.