The Will Thing

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Aug 17 reading:

(about the rich young ruler)...

"Sell all that you have," undress yourself morally before God of everything that might be a possession until you are a mere conscious human being and then give God that. That is where the battle is fought - in the domain of the will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Himself? (etc, etc...)

The human will is a funny thing. I mean, it grabs - no- grips at you and causes you to rationalize everything down to something in favour of your own understanding. It is easy to say, "Your will be done, Lord," but quite another to willingly allow your own will to die. The person who goes to the guillotine willingly may have triumphed over his own flesh, but still possesses a will of steely determination to die for his cause. Ask him to lay down his cause, and he may yet live in his body but would have died in his soul. A mere shadow of the person he used to be.

Yet God says "deny yourselves and follow Me". I am sure He wasn't just talking about how we should treat our bodies.