DYING TO SELF

When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinion ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart or even defend yourself, but take it all in patient, loving silence,

That is dying to self

When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, any annoyance, when you can stand face to face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility, and endure it as Jesus did,

This is dying to self

When you are content with any food, and offering, any raiment, any climate, any society, any solitude, any interruption by the will of God,

That is dying to self

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation or record your own good works or itch after commendation, when you can truly love to be unknown,

This is dying to self

When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met, and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy, nor question God, while your own needs are far greater and you are in the midst of desperate circumstances,

That is dying to self

When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and can humbly submit, inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within you,

This is dying to self

When you are forgotten, neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don’t sting or hurt with the oversight, but your heart is happy to be counted worthy to suffer for Christ,

That is dying to self