Is "you only live once" / "YOLO" something a Christian should live by?

Peter's error gave the Lord the opportunity of pointing out the character of the path which all His own must tread. "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it." Thus if the cross must needs be His portion, His followers must accept the cross also. For Him, of course, the cross meant atonement for sin, as well as rejection and shame; we share the rejection and shame only. But nature shrinks from, and even resents, this. Its motto (suggested by Satan) is "Spare thyself"; God's motto is "Deny thyself." It has been truly said that Peter "at the last denied the Lord because he had not denied himself."

Our Lord turns to the disciples and puts before them that not merely is He going to the cross, but they must be prepared to follow Him there. If I am to be in the true path of Jesus, I must deny myself and take up the cross and follow — not the disciples — not this church or that church, but — Jesus Himself. I must turn from what is pleasing to my heart naturally. I must meet with shame and rejection in this present evil world. If not, depend upon it, I am not following Jesus; and remember, it is a dangerous thing to believe in Jesus without following Him. Following Jesus maybe like losing one's life. At the present time much confession of Christ is, comparatively, an easy matter. There is little opposition, or persecution. People imagine that the world is changed; they talk of progress and enlightenment. The truth is, Christians are changed. Let us ask ourselves whether we desire to be found taking up our cross and following Jesus. "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it" (vers. 24, 25).

The Path of Suffering (v. 23-27). The Lord opens His instruction with the words, "If any man will come after Me." Touching words that presume He has gone before and marked out a path for His own, and, drawn by love, that they would seek to tread where He has trod. At the entrance of this path we find these searching words, "Let him deny himself." Men speak of self-denial, and have self-denial weeks, by which they mean denying themselves certain things for a limited period of time to help some benevolent cause. This, however, is the very opposite of denying self, for it rather adds to self-complacency and the exaltation of self. The denial of self is not simply denying ourselves certain things, but the denial of the man that lusts after these. The denial of self is the ignoring of self altogether in order to serve others in love. Such was the path that the Lord ever trod while passing through this world of need. Moreover, as rejected by this world, Christ is in the outside place of reproach, and those who follow Him will find that they too will have to face reproach. Thus the Lord exhorts the one that comes after Him to "take up his cross daily." For the Lord the cross meant not only suffering and shame from the hands of men, but also the far deeper sufferings from the hand of God. He was alone in His sufferings at the hand of a holy God, when made sin; but in His sufferings from men we can in our little measure share, and He has left us the perfect example of such sufferings for we are told to consider Him that "endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God" (Heb. 12:2). We are exhorted "To go forth … to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach." Moreover, this reproach is to be taken up "daily." This is a searching word, for it is comparatively easy to make some great sacrifice on some special occasion, but the "daily" acceptance of the path of reproach and suffering for Christ's sake in everyday life calls for great grace. But how is it possible to deny self and accept reproach? Only as we have an object that is greater than self before us. Thus the Lord adds the words, "Follow Me." Furthermore, to follow after Christ must mean the letting go of the present life. Whoever, believer or unbeliever, lives only for the present life, is living a life that he must inevitably lose, for at best it is but a passing life. To have Christ before us, is to live a life that will never pass away: — a life that can be enjoyed now, but will only be known in all its fulness in life's eternal home. Lastly, it is impossible to follow Christ and at the same time walk with the world and seek its advantages. Paul, with Christ as his life, could say, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." Even for the unbeliever what advantage is there in gaining the whole world for a few fleeting years and then to be lost for eternity? For the believer to associate with the world and seek its advantages and honours must mean the loss of all present joy in the Lord, the end of all testimony for the Lord, and the forfeiture of His approval in the day "When He shall come in His own glory and in His Father's, and of the holy angels." Thus to follow truly a rejected Christ will mean, as to this present world, the refusal of self, the reproach of men, the loss of the present life with the world and its advantages.

In verse 34 both His disciples and all the people need what He tells them. If one wants to come after Him, he is called upon to deny himself (not only to deny certain pleasures or advantages, but himself), take up his cross and follow Him. This involves wholehearted, willing self-denial for Christ's sake. There are those who consider this matter of taking up the cross as having to bear trials and afflictions that we cannot avoid. This is not the case. Rather it is a question of our voluntarily accepting the reproach of Christ by a clear confession of Him before a world that rejects Him. Let us do this gladly, cheerfully, out of honest affection for the Lord Jesus. He who would save his life is the one who wants to use it for his own personal advantage. After all, he will only lose it in the end, and what does he have? On the other hand, he who would lose his life is one who is willing to give up the present personal advantages of it for Christ's sake and for the sake of the gospel. In the end this would be actually saving his life, for it would produce lasting, profitable results. Selfishness always defeats its own ends, while unselfish devotion to Christ gains far more than we have any desire to gain.

But if Christ is to be first, self must go, and so we find that the disciple has to deny himself and to take up his cross daily.

“If only we exercise a little self denial every day, we shall get on to heaven very comfortably.” What a volume of wholesome practical truth in this brief utterance! The path of self-denial is the Christian's true path. “If any man,” says Christ, “will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). It is not, “let him deny certain things belonging to himself.” No, he must “deny himself,” and this is a “daily” thing. Each morning, as we rise and enter afresh upon the pathway of daily life, we have the same grand and all-important work before us, namely, to deny self.

To deny one's self means that you make up your mind that the things of God are going to be first in your life; not your will, but the will of God. Then you accept the judgment of God upon man after the flesh, for the cross means that God has ended the flesh as a means of producing anything for Him. Both its best and its worst are completely set aside. You may remember in the sin offering the skin went into the fire, that is the best of it; but the dung went in as well, that is the worst of it. While we may be thankful we have power to judge and set aside the worst of the flesh, we may often be captivated by the best of it. If we accept the cross of Christ we bring that cross to bear on every motive of the flesh, good as well as bad. There is only one way left open now to the man who has reached self-displacement, who has accepted the judgment of God upon himself in relation to the flesh, and that is, to follow Jesus. It would raise the question with one, What am I really seeking? Is it that I may be glorified, or that Christ may be glorified? Is the state of my heart right as having but one desire, that Christ may be glorified in my life here?

Verse 24 then is specially significant for Peter and every follower of the Lord. To be a true disciple one must deny himself (including his mere natural thoughts), take up his cross, and follow the Lord Jesus. The denial here is not merely denying oneself certain things, but denying himself. Self is set aside by the application of the cross, which cuts out by the roots all that is merely of the natural man. Only this is true devotedness: Christ must take the place of Self.

Can it be possible to mistake the meaning of "taking up the cross," when so closely connected as it is with self-denial, and the following of Jesus? For it is plainly manifest from the passage, that there can be no true discipleship without denying one's self, and following the Lord. But self-mortification, whipping, and other monkish habits, though they may be a species of self-denial, certainly are not the cross-bearing of the gospel. And on the other hand the cross worn by the Crusaders of old, far from being coupled with the self-denial of the text, was actually opposed to the true cross of Christ, serving only as a cloak for the indulgence of the worst and most selfish of human passions. As a matter of fact, the true character of the cross, as well as of self-denial, is sufficiently determined by the Lord's injunction, "Follow Me." For whatever interferes with consistent discipleship is to be given up in order to follow Him. And whatever burden of obloquy falls upon one faithful to Christ constitutes the cross to be taken up for His sake.

The force of "deny himself" is hardly expressed by "self-denial," which is the denying oneself of something. What the Lord speaks of is not that but the denial, or the saying of "no," to oneself. Also, "take up his cross" does not mean bearing trials and troubles merely. The man who in those days took up his cross was being led to execution. He was a man who had to accept death at the hands of the world. To say "no" to oneself is to accept death internally, on one's own spirit: to take up one's cross is to accept death externally at the hands of the world. That is what discipleship must mean, since we follow the Christ who died, rejected of the world.