To deny one's self is more than self-denial; it is to say "No" to the very self with its tacit assumption of a right to the life we possess; it is to repudiate the ego which claims a right to go its own way. Man has no right in life, and therefore no right to use life as he pleases for his own ends; and the meaning of the saying (in Mark 8:34) was to be demonstrated fully and finally when Jesus himself went voluntarily to surrender his life. He deliberately substituted his Father's will for his own, saying, "Not what I will, but what Thou wilt"; and when his life was ended in the darkness of death his own will was extinguished in oblivion.

L.G. Sargent, The Gospel of the Son of God, page 120