Teach us, Lord, to deny ourselves for the sake of your kingdom. Help us distinguish self-righteous suffering from the suffering that comes from bearing our crosses as we follow you.

From Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

My chief concern was now to see myself in print. It was as if I could not be quite satisfied that I was real until I could feed my ambition with these trivial glories, and my ancient selfishness was now matured and concentrated in this desire to see myself externalized in a public and printed and official self which I could admire at my ease. This was what I really believed in: reputation, success. I wanted to live in the eyes and the mouths and the minds of men. I was no so crude that I wanted to be known and admired by the whole world: there was a certain naive satisfaction in the idea of being only appreciated by a particular minority, which gave a special fascination to this urge within me. But when my mind was absorbed in all that, ... how could I love God, when everything I did was done not for Him but for myself, and not trusting in His aid, but relying on my own wisdom and talents?

Lax rebuked me for all this. His whole attitude about writing was purified of such stupidity, and was steeped in holiness, in charity, in disinterestedness.  

Thomas Merton, The Seven Story Mountain, 236

A prayer from John Piper's Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ:

O Father of glory, this is the cry of our hearts--to be changed from one degree of glory to another, until, in the resurrection, at the last trumpet, we are completely conformed to the image of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Until then, we long to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord, especially the knowledge of his glory. We want to see it as clearly as we see the sun, and to savor it as deeply as our most desired pleasure. O merciful God, incline our hearts to your Word and the wonders of your glory. Wean us from our obsession with trivial things. Open the eyes of our hearts to see each day what the created universe is telling about your glory. Enlighten our minds to see the glory of your Son in the Gospel. We believe that you are the All-glorious One, and that there is none like you. Help our unbelief. Forgive the wandering of our affections and the undue attention we give to lesser things. Have mercy on us for Christ’s sake, and fulfill in us your great design to display the glory of your grace. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

From Piper's Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ:

We are all starved for the glory of God, not self. No one goes to the Grand Canyon to increase self-esteem. Why do we go? Because there is greater healing for the soul in beholding splendor than there is in beholding self. Indeed, what could be more ludicrous in a vast and glorious universe like this than a human being, on the speck called earth, standing in front of a mirror trying to find significance in his own self-image? It is a great sadness that this is the gospel of the modern world. 

But it is not the Christian Gospel. Into the darkness of petty self-preoccupation has shone "the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." The Christian Gospel is about "the glory of Christ," not about me. And when it is--in some measure--about me, it is not about my being made much of by God, but about God mercifully enabling me to enjoy making much of him forever.

Matthew 28:18-20, HCSB:

Then Jesus came near and said to them, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

From Augustine's Confessions, Book IV:

"Return, sinners, to your heart" (Isa. 46:8 LXX), and adhere to him who made you. Stand with him and you will stand fast. Rest in him and you will be at rest. Where are you going to along rough paths? What is the goal of your journey? The good which you love is from him. But it is only as it is related to him that it is good and sweet. Otherwise it will justly become bitter; for all that comes from him is unjustly loved if he has been abandoned. With what end in view do you again and again walk along difficult and laborious paths (Wisd. 5:7)? There is no rest where you seek for it.

We tend to vastly underestimate the importance of our bodies, but they are part of our being. We're not mere spirits who inhabit bodies. We are embodied, incarnated beings who tend not to be driven by our thoughts, but by something more basic — our affections, or even, as James K. A. Smith puts it in Desiring the Kingdom, our gut. I was reminded of this fact as I came across this passage last night in Jerome Jerome's Three Men in a Boat:

How good one feels when one is full — how satisfied with ourselves and with the world! People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained. One feels so forgiving and generous after a substantial and well-digested meal — so noble-minded, so kindly-hearted.  

It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and bacon, it says, "Work!" After beefsteak and porter, it says, "Sleep!" After a cup of tea (two spoonsful for each cup, and don't let it stand more than three minutes), it says to the brain, "Now, rise, and show your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature and into life; spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god- like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!" 

After hot muffins, it says, "Be dull and soulless, like a beast of the field — a brainless animal, with listless eye, unlit by any ray of fancy, or of hope, or fear, or love, or life." And after brandy, taken in sufficient quantity, it says, "Now, come, fool, grin and tumble, that your fellow-men may laugh — drivel in folly, and splutter in senseless sounds, and show what a helpless ninny is poor man whose wit and will are drowned, like kittens, side by side, in half an inch of alcohol." 

We are but the veriest, sorriest slaves of our stomach. Reach not after morality and righteousness, my friends; watch vigilantly your stomach, and diet it with care and judgment. Then virtue and contentment will come and reign within your heart, unsought by any effort of your own; and you will be a good citizen, a loving husband, and a tender father — a noble, pious man.

Jonathan Edwards reminds us that our motivation to serve Christ should not be fear, but our desires, our affections, our loves. The following is from "Advice to Young Converts" (emphasis mine): 

When the exercise of grace is at a low ebb, and corruption prevails, and by that means fear prevails, don't desire to have fear cast out any other way than by the reviving and prevailing of love, for it is not agreeable to the method of God's wise dispensations that it should be cast out any other way. When love is asleep, the saints need fear to restrain them from sin, and therefore it is so ordered that at such times fear comes upon them, and that more or less as love sinks. But when love is in lively exercise, persons don't need fear. The prevailing of love in the heart naturally tends to cast out fear as darkness in a room vanishes away as you let more and more of the perfect beams of the sun into it: "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." (1 John 4:18)

From The Valley of Vision, "Crucifixion and Resurrection":

Help me to be a holy, happy person,
  free from every wrong desire,
  from everything contrary to thy mind.
Grant me more and more of the resurrection life:
  may it rule me,
  may I walk in its power,
  and be strengthened through its influence.

From Haug & Walker's Journey to the Cross:

"When the crowds were flocking to Jesus, he withdrew to prayer. He did not need the approval of the masses because he was rooted in the words that came down from heaven: 'You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased' (Mark 1:11). . . . 

"The gospel tells us who we are: We are made in the image of God, created in his likeness for his glory. This truth speaks to both our dignity and our dependence. Before and after the fall, people need God in every aspect of life, 'for in him we live and move and have our being' (Acts 17:28).

"The gospel tells us whose we are: We belong to God, body and soul. He is our Maker, to whom we belong by virtue of design. He is our Father, whom we belong to by means of adoption. . . . 'Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord' (Romans 8:39).

". . . In humility we are becoming less concerned with our prestige. Our wills are breaking and we are not demanding our rights anymore. On the journey to the cross, fear is losing its grip as we cling to our identity in Christ. Pride is being starved because we are letting go of our need to be [seen as] right and [our need for] our desires to be recognized. We are being liberated from the solitary confinement of self-concern."

From Haug & Walker's Journey to the Cross:

"Our consumerism is rooted in a lack of faith. We are worried about what others think because we are not convinced that God delights in us (Psalm 149:4). We are anxious because we do not believe God will meet our needs (Matthew 6:32). We vie for attention because we do not think God rewards what is done in secret (Matthew 6:6). We compare ourselves to others because we forget that Jesus is our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30). A consumer is self-seeking because he is preoccupied with building his own kingdom in order to meet his own needs. ... Jesus especially calls us to re-right our lives, to "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you" (Matthew 6:33).

"The simple practice of self-denial ... teaches us that those who trust God to meet their needs are free to consider the needs of others. They discover this gospel paradox: As long as I'm looking to get my needs met, I will never get my needs met. But when I begin to meet the needs of others--when I begin to live for them instead of for myself--I find that God graciously takes care of my needs in the process. The grace of God turns us into  servants. Instead of demanding that we be served, we joyfully lay down our rights and seek to serve God and others."

From Haug & Walker's Journey to the Cross:

"From beginning to end, Jesus' life on earth was marked by humility. 'Though he was in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross' (Philippians 2:7-8).

. . . 

"An incomparable condescension. The Son of God gave up his seat at the right hand of the Father for a place at the table with sinners and tax collectors. 'The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many' (Mark 10:45). 'Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich' (2 Corinthians 8:9)."

"We are prone to wander, to pursue life on our terms, to locate our sense of worth and joy and peace outside of God. So the call to repentance is a standing invitation to give up our idolatrous pursuits, and turn to the one true God who restores us to the life for which we were made."

Haug & Walker, Journey to the Cross

"In times of temptation we forget what you have done for us. You give us everything we need, yet we often remain unsatisfied. ... You show us the way we are to follow, yet we often continue on the path of self-indulgence and self-centeredness. Forgive us, we pray. We ask for your direction, your patience, your love, in the name of  Jesus Christ, who, in spite of his temptations, was faithful to your saving Word."

[The Worship Sourcebook]

"This is what Lent is about: joining the company of God's people to consider Jesus' suffering and death; denying ourselves and being sustained by God so that we may run straighter and stronger; gaining hope and strength from the faithfulness of God in Christ Jesus. ... Fix your eyes on Jesus, our brave frontrunner and generous host."

Haug & Walker, Journey to the Cross

"[Don't] miss something that God wants to do in you this season.

Jesus fasted from food and water for forty days in the wilderness. It was not a religious ritual or merely a display of his restraint. Rather, it was a time of trial and temptation which he endured by entrusting himself to God and being nourished on the Word of God. The point of the wilderness, for Jesus, was to experience the real presence of God with him, and power of God at work in him. ...

The ... practice of denying usual comforts is a means of deepening our sense of union with Jesus, and reorienting our life around the things of God. We give up that which distracts and entangles because we want to experience some real joy and freedom in Christ.

Haug & Walker, Journey to the Cross

I am reading Journey to the Cross right now. A blessing so far.

"Those are the best and most acceptable services in which Jesus is the solitary aim of the soul, and His glory, without any admixture whatever, the end of all our efforts. Let our many fruits be laid up only for our Beloved; let us display them when He is with us, and not hold them up before the gaze of men. Jesus, we will turn the key in our garden door, and none shall enter to rob Thee of one good fruit from the soil which Thou hast watered with Thy bloody sweat. Our all shall be Thine, Thine only, O Jesus, our Beloved!"

Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, October 1

"Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets." Luke 6:26, ESV

"There's trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests--look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task is to be true, not popular." Luke 6:26, The Message

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Matthew 6:33, ESV

Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

Matthew 6:33, The Message

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Matthew 6:24, ESV

You can't worship two gods at  once. Loving one god, you'll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can't worship God and Money both.

Matthew 6:24, The Message