Like many of you reading this post, I decided that healthy eating would be a worthy goal this year. To that end, I’ve started curating a “snack box” every morning. What’s in this mysterious snack box you might ask? Well, it contains portioned-out munchies for my day. Yesterday’s box, for instance, included fruit for my mid-morning snack, one Reese’s peanut butter cup for my post-lunch dessert, a few nuts, crackers, and crunchy bits and bobs for the evening, and one small(ish) piece of Christmas cake for my post-dinner cravings.

Recently, I had some friends over and when they happened to look at my snack box, their eyes widened in amused horror. Why was there cake and candy in my carefully curated contents? Well, without portioning it out, I would likely consume twice as many unhealthy things. Sweets and snacks are my weakest link (anyone else with me on this?). This was my perhaps feeble attempt at self-denial when it comes to food. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.

But I’m not here to provide nutrition advice or give you five steps to building good habits in 2025. As I was thinking about my word for the year—self-denial—I happened to read what is arguably the most compelling verse when it comes to this theme.

“Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39)

These are Jesus’ powerful words in the Garden of Gethsemane. As He prays to the Father, Jesus embodies radical sacrifice and self-denial. He knew the suffering and separation that awaited Him at Calvary. But He chooses to lay down His life.

There were no baby steps there. The God of the Universe stepped into the darkness of the world to save us through His sacrifice.

In that very same chapter, Matthew 26, we see one of Jesus’ closest disciples, Peter, who when Jesus was arrested and led away, followed “at a distance.” But instead of self-denial, Peter, in that moment of extreme stress, chose to deny Jesus. Not once, not twice, but three times. He cared more for his reputation than for his relationship with Jesus.

The story has a part two and Peter was restored through his repentance. But here’s the thing: praying, “Lord, rid me of myself” is just the start. We need the equipping of the Spirit, but we also need to take steps of obedience.

In contrast, at the start of the chapter, the scene opens with the woman with the alabaster jar of perfume. In an extravagant act of worship, the woman pours the expensive perfume over Jesus’ head. The others in the room sneered: impractical, wasteful, impetuous, excessive. Her act of worship was dismissed and disdained. But the woman was willing to sacrifice her reputation because she cared more about her relationship with Jesus.

Friend, a prayer to deny oneself must be followed by steps of obedience. It means we don’t follow at a distance as Peter did. But we follow so closely in the footsteps of our Saviour that we find ourselves “covered in the dust” of our Rabbi’s sandals.

Self-denial sometimes means laying down our reputation for the sake of our relationship with our God.

May we break our alabaster jars for Jesus because He chose to be broken on the Cross for us. Let us imitate His words as we say: Yet not as I will, but as You will.”

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