Do you understand that biblical "self-denial" does not mean the eradication of the self?
The self is a creation of God. God knit us together in our mother's womb and gave us each
name. Those whose are the Lamb's have their names written in the Lamb's book of life for all eternity!
You will never not have a name, don. Furthermore, the second greatest command is to love others as we love ourself. That would a self-contradictory command if the self were something only-evil to be eradicated. Likewise, one of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. Self-control is logically impossible if there is no self. Additionally, each and every human is created in the image of God and those who are in Christ bear the additional image of God found in Christ Jesus alone..... yet no two people bear that image identically. God has made seven billion people and no two are alike. The self is a good thing. God does not make bad things.
So, when Matthew 16:24 and other verses speak of self-denial it should never be construed to mean the self must be eradicated to the point it ceases to exist.
Furthermore, the appeal to Matthew 16:24 is a great reference, but it does nothing to clarify what YOU mean specifically by "suffering." Matthew 16:24 does NOT say taking up one's cross and following Jesus is suffering.
How is prayer and watching suffering?
Hmmm....
Neither John 15:15 nor Matthew 24:13 say anything about fasting, alms, or suffering. They speak of bearing fruit and being eschatologically saved.
Notice the Hebrews 12 text does not ask anyone to shed their own blood in their striving against sin. Verse 4 merely observes the Hebrews readers had not done so.
Jesus had.
We get spared the need to shed out blood because Jesus di so on our behalf. There is, as is the case with all the verses cited so far, no explicit mention of the word "
suffer" or "
suffering," anywhere in the entire chapter.
Now maybe we are getting somewhere. What does verse 29 mean? Here there is an actual explicit mention of "suffer" but the "we" is specifically the Christians living in the first century in Philippi. Belief was given to them, and so was suffering. As I believe I pointed out earlier, this suffering was specified in the context of their opponents. No "
volitional internal suffering" is mentioned.
We don't have those same kind of opponents here in the US here in the 21st century.
It is a hugely different experience being persecuted with civil legal cases backed by a Constitution that affirms our inherent right to religious expression than being covered in pitch, skewered on a pole and lit afire while still alive to serve as a streetlight.
You never met Paul. You never saw the "
conflict" in him.
Speak for yourself. I am very thankful and rejoice Paul suffered on behalf of the fledgling Church. Centuries of Christians have benefitted and centuries more will also do so. Praise God! Rejoice! Paul is dead and gone, though. He no longer suffers anything. The "now" of verse 24 was the first century, not the 21st century.
This might be the only explicit example of a "voluntary internal suffering" in the entire list, so I wonder why so many other verses that do not specify suffering are conflated with this text.
I will suggest two avenues for consideration. The first has to do predominantly with Romans 7-8 and the notion we do what we don't want to do and do what we don't want to do because of the law of sin and death that exists in the world
