Some will mortify themselves in many things, and so almost every thing in religion but one; unfortunately, that one is the test of their obedience, and the very thing required of them. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
This is a vital point and possibly cannot be stressed enough. People will go to great lengths in the denial of self (so-called) and yet they will not deny self at the very point it must be denied. The Pharisees are excellent (in a manner of speaking) examples of this. They were stringent in denying themselves things that could be denied in the strength of self, but in reality they were doing it for the purpose of self which is to say for the purpose of bringing honor to themselves. In other words, they were not really denying self as self but instead were appearing to deny self while doing it all for self. To put it even a different way, they denied an external self in order to exalt the religious self in their own eyes and in the eyes of others. Pride is pride regardless of the realm it is in.
Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. 27 “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. 28 “For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? 29 “Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 “Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 “Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.
Jesus used some strong language to cut to the issues of the heart in that day and therefore all periods in human history. He was very clear that people must give up all things in order to be His disciples. This is not a teaching that is popular in the modern day when God is thought of in terms of what He will do for people if they will follow Him, but in fact people must deny themselves and all that they are and have in order to follow Him. It is required, according to this text, that a person hate his closest family members and even his own life in order to be a disciple of Christ. I would argue, though without much detail in this medium, that what is being taught here is that a person must follow Christ even if people (family included) thinks it amounts to hatred of the family. It is not a real hatred intended in the text for the close family members, as we know Scripture teaches that we are to love them. But it is not just hyperbole to make a point, but instead it may appear to others that we hate people if we follow Christ as Christ commands us to follow Him.
The teaching of Christ, when set out with some degree of illumination by Thomas Adam above, shows us that the demands of Christ cuts far deeper than some can imagine. It also shows us what a mockery of Christianity and discipleship many are teaching today. It is not that one is a Christian (follower of Christ) if one is willing to raise a hand, pray a prayer, and walk down an aisle, but instead it is one that denies all and bows in submission to a new Master and that Master is Christ. It is Christ that must be loved supremely and above all other people and things if the person is to be a true follower of Christ. One cannot be a disciple if one does not give up all of his or her possessions. Wow, some will exclaim, that sounds like works. No, it is a work of grace in the heart. Others will complain that this is impossible, and to be honest it really is for the natural man. But the heart that has Christ as its life owns nothing because Christ owns that person and all of that person’s life and possessions. Whatever that one thing is that a person will not mortify is a demonstration that the person is still the master of self and Christ is not the Master. Everything but one thing really means no thing in reality. How easy it is for the heart to deceive itself into thinking it has denied all when in fact it has denied nothing but Christ.
God Loves... Himself 
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