Article November 25, 1933 Issue

Denying One's Self

MILDRED BARNES SIMPSON

Jesus gave a specific admonition to those who would follow him. He said, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." In referring to this denial of self, which Jesus mentioned among the requirements for discipleship, our Leader says in "No and Yes" (p. 2), "Our Master taught his students to deny self, sense, and take up the cross." She has thus clearly identified the self which, with sense, is to be denied. Obviously, then, it is a material sense of self which must be denied, put off, if we would follow in the footsteps of the Master, Christ Jesus, in successive overcomings of the belief of evil, in demonstration of the power and presence of God, good.

Mankind, unenlightened by the liberating power of Truth, finds itself bowed down with a knowledge of this false material selfhood, knowledge which is far from joyous. Medical theories claim that disease and other dangerous inheritances can act on this selfhood embodied in matter. Psychology claims that this mortal selfhood can have ability of itself or can lack ability; that it can be endowed with temperamental tendencies both good and bad. Economics declares that in accordance with certain material conditions mortals can be deprived not only of the good things of human existence, but even of bare necessities.

Every one of these claims, however, refers to the counterfeit mortal selfhood, and not one of them relates to the real man, the son of God. These claims, if accepted as true and admitted into thought or experience, attach themselves to a mortal, material sense of things. In proportion as this false selfhood is put off, one is putting one's self out of the reach of these devastating beliefs; for in no way can these identify themselves with man's true selfhood as a child of God.

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