True Self-Denial: Centered in Christ
Story★★★★In common talk, Christ’s words, “deny himself,” mean to subtract from himself meat on Friday, tobacco in Lent, wine permanently; and the answer of the sum is conscious spirituality. That is not Christian arithmetic. Let us try to re-translate; and, if our words are a little more obviously Latin, the meaning may be clearer—negate self, delete it. Any printer will tell you what it means when in his proof he finds a line drawn through the word self, and in the margin the sign dele.
That, I think, is what Christ means. A hair shirt will, I expect, always remind you of your body: the Christian life is to forget it in using it for Jesus. Mortification, fasting, and so on, remind you of yourself: they are negative; and in both ways they are anti-Christian. The Christian life is positive, and happy in being centered in Christ, and forgetful of all but Him and His ideals.
The point
True Christian self-denial means to negate and delete the self entirely, not merely abstain from pleasures; the Christian life is positive, centered on Christ, not negative renunciation.