Scriptures on dying to self

Dying to self as a believer according to Jesus, was a prerequisite to following Him. There is no way anyone could or can follow Jesus wholeheartedly unless they had denied themselves and died to their old self.

What does dying to self mean?

Dying to self meant in those days, and still means today that one must give up everything else they had, hoped for, planned for, imagined before meeting Jesus.

When we look at the biblical example, Matthew for example, had a job. As a tax collector. Made a lot of money doing it and had made a good life for himself.

But when Jesus called him, Matthew left everything. He literally just stood up from his booth, abandoned his post, and left everything. And followed Jesus.

He didn’t need to make a contingency plan. What will happen if this Jesus thing doesn’t work out and so forth? He didn’t. He listened, obeyed, and trusted. He died to himself. Died to life as he knew it. And that is the true definition of denying yourself or dying to self.

As believers, or as I love to call myself, as followers of Jesus, we can not fully begin to follow Him unless we have died to our former selves. The act of dying to self is the first step to discipleship.

As people grow from being kids, they make up plans of how they want their lives to be. Who they want to become and so forth. Most people by age 13 have already decided the direction their life will take.

And every day after that will be a step towards fulfilling that plan. People go to college, spend years studying to follow a particular career path, and so forth.

But when Jesus calls you. It doesn’t matter how many years you spent studying to be whatever it is that you studied for.

It doesn’t matter who you have become. It doesn’t matter what title you have obtained. The only thing that matters is that when Jesus calls you and you answer, to walk fully in your divine calling, you must die to your old self.

Everything that you thought you where going to do will have to die.

This scripture on dying to self means that when you decide to follow Jesus you must decrease so that He can increase. He can not increase when you are already above Him. 

When we decrease we give Jesus the chance to take over. 

I have been a Christian all my life, but I was lukewarm and I exalted myself above everything else in my life. Nothing and no one came before me. 

But Jesus, in all His pursuit of me, asked one thing of me. Just one thing. That I completely surrender everything to him. That I die to my idea of who I was going to be and why I was here. 

Dying to self was the hardest decision I ever made. I knew the moment I made that decision that my life as I knew it would never be the same. 

But when I decided to heed to His call I died to myself. I died to everything. All the plans that I had had for my life. All the visions that I had. I l surrendered it all. I decreased and let me tell you, He has not stopped increasing in my life.

5 Stages of Dying daily to self

1. Put God ahead of everything

What this scripture on dying to self means about dying daily to self is not literally hating your parents, family, or friends. But what it means is that every other thing in your life that you valued the most before God must come second to him. Second to His word. Second to His plans for your life. 

This verse is very powerful because it gives you a clear hierarchy of what God expects from us. He wants to come first in our lives. Before our parents, before our spouses, before our children. 

God first then everything else

I especially understand this in the aspect of one who comes from a family of nonbelievers. Be it their parents, siblings, or spouse. Obviously, there will be a backlash when this person tells the family about Jesus.

Persecution will be inevitable. But this verse says that, regardless of what they say. Even if your parents disown you as their child it’s fine. Their desires must not come before those of God. Jesus tells us that his plans must supersede those of anything and anyone else in our lives. 

When we do not care anymore about what other people say or think except Jesus, then we are ready to follow him, then we can start the practice of dying daily to self.

2. Commit to living for Christ

These scriptures on dying to self explain that when you decide to follow Jesus, and dying daily to self, the life that you now live is not your own but it’s for Jesus. 

What does that even mean?

As people, we have ultimate autonomy over our own lives. What we eat. What we wear. Where we go. And stuff like that. But when we decide to follow Jesus we have to die to self. Die to our autonomy over our lives. As Paul says, become slaves of Christ. 

Become a slave for Christ

Our perception of how we must be on our terms must cease to exist. Our lives become Jesus’. We no longer have that autonomy over our lives. When we are dying daily to self, we become a new creation. And the new creation belongs to Jesus.

Only He determines where we go. What we do. What we wear and so forth. One thing I discovered after deciding to follow Jesus was the Holy Spirit’s power in my life. When I tell you, the Holy Spirit speaks. He leads. He guides on how to stop sinning.

The things that I used to do freely. The movies that I used to watch without feeling anything I simply can not watch anymore. It was at this stage where I discovered the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. 

He can show you how Jesus wants you to live. And to me, this is one thing that I really enjoyed. Some things you may plan to do and not see anything wrong with them.

Jesus must determine how you live your life

But you will feel that you are grieving the Holy Spirit and feel this discomfort that will make you stop immediately. Like oh wow. I must not do this. 

Our lives become His. when we are dying daily to self. Whatever He says we will do.No Matter how uncomfortable it may seem. But when you die to self then you know that your life is not your own. For me to live is Christ. Before He gave me a life I was dead.

But now I am alive. So I live for him. Whatever he says I will do. Wherever He wants me to, I will go. That is denying yourself and dying to self.

3. Surrender everything and lay it all at His feet

This scripture on dying to self talks about what I briefly touched on, in the first part concerning dying daily to self. When we truly decide to follow Jesus. With all our heart and mind we must renounce EVERYTHING that we have.

Like I mentioned earlier, for example, you will be called to be a pastor or a missionary in Africa. But you have this amazing corporate job or even a business that may not survive when you leave.

But Jesus says, to follow him, effectively, forget about your life before Him. Renounce all the plans and ideas that you had for your life. Surrender it all at His feet, they also refer to it as casting down your crowns at the feet of Jesus.

When we do this we say, Jesus, you are more important than all of these material things. Nothing else matters. Your plans are better than my own.

This act communicates trust in Jesus. That, God I trust in you and I commit to dying daily to self. If you called me to do this I will not worry. Because I know that everything that I need You will provide. 

The bible has an example in Acts 2 where all the believers sold their possessions and goods and divided them all among themselves. This is what that verse means. Renounce everything that you have and commit to following Jesus as the new church did in the book of Acts. That is dying to self.

4. Carry your own cross 

This is a very powerful scripture on dying to self and aspect of our lives as disciples of Jesus. A cross from the example of the crucifixion of Jesus is very heavy and uncomfortable.

A cross is a sign of a journey to death. When Jesus carried His own cross He was walking to Golgotha where He was crucified. This is the same example that He gives us.

We must carry our cross daily towards death. And that is dying to self in fact, dying daily to self. It’s a daily decision since we are at constant war with our flesh. We can never be fully delivered from the lust of our flesh. Because our flesh is not transformed upon salvation, only our spirit is.

Crucify your flesh

So to win against our flesh we must intentionally deny ourselves and start dying daily to self. We must crucify the flesh from all the fleshly, ungodly things it wants. We must effectively resist temptation no matter how hard.

And doing this is not easy hence the term carrying our own cross. It is a constant struggle since we live in a fallen world and everywhere we look are temptations. Things that will satisfy the flesh but displease God.

So each time we feel our flesh wanting to do something that is against God’s will, we have to actively deny ourselves and begin dying daily to self. Carry our crosses and keep our eyes on the price. After dying to self, we can follow Jesus.

5. Make the decision that Jesus or nothing

This is a very powerful scripture on dying to self and revelation in terms of dying to self to follow Jesus. I learned that we can not be “ one leg in, one leg out” Christians. We can not be on the fence. We can not be lukewarm followers of Jesus.

When we decide to follow Jesus we must make a decision to go ALL in or nothing. We must be ALL in for Jesus. When we decide to read and live according to the word of God we follow what it says to the T. Not selecting what is Ok for us and ignoring the other uncomfortable things is dying daily to self.

This is the area that I relate to the most. I remember I never understood the people who were very passionate about “this whole Jesus thing”

Lukewarm Christians cannot fully follow Jesus

I always thought that they were being unnecessarily extra. It didn’t take all that. Just calm down and love Jesus from the sidelines I would say. 

How wrong was I? I was ashamed of standing up to my beliefs because I was afraid people would also judge me the way I judged others. I thought I would be a dignified Christian who doesn’t make an unnecessary fuss.

But NO!!! If we knew what Jesus did for us we would make all the fuss there is. Being indifferent is being on the fence. It is serving 2 masters. And Jesus says we can not do that. When you decide to follow Jesus, it’s all Jesus or nothing.

Choose JESUS, 100%

Do not entertain the small foxes if you want to be dying daily to self. The moment you start allowing one or 2 harmless small sins, you are also serving the devil. Following Jesus means 100%, Jesus. You can not do 15% world and 85% Jesus if you are dying daily to self. Not possible. 

So when you decide to follow Jesus, die to self by going all in. Give up everything. Especially those little foxes because through them we give the devil legal right to come in and attack us.