Welcome to our service today. It is great to have you here and we would love to invite you to stay after the service and join us for tea and coffee.

I have been reading this week about what it means to ‘deny yourself’. In Matthew 16:24 Jesus says to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself…..” But how do I outwork this in my life?

To deny is to say no. Therefore, if I want to follow Jesus the first step is to say no to myself. The original Greek literally says to deny your soul. Our soul is made up of 3 parts – our will, our mind and our emotions. Our will says “I want”, our mind says “I think” and our emotions say “I feel”. Putting this all together, to deny myself I must say “It’s not what I want, but it’s God’s will (what He wants for me),” and “It’s not what I think but what God says,” and “It’s not what I feel, it’s what the Holy Spirit impresses upon me.” I found this a really useful teaching!

In summary, I think of the following well known song – “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.” 

With love & blessings,

Sandra