If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Luke 14:26 ESV

[From a sermon by the Rev. Eric Irwin, Covenant Presbyterian Church, Issaquah. See link at end.]

In the middle of verse 26, among the people you are supposed to hate is yourself, your own life. The most insidious form of self-love is thinking highly of ourselves and poorly of others. That’s my own sin.

That is why it is one of the first things that Paul addresses in Philippians 2: “In humility, count others more significant than yourselves.” But there’s another facet of self-love in things like the coronavirus, where there is just so much fear.

To hate your life means that you don’t live primarily to protect your life. That’s not the reason you’re here. Rather, you live, in Paul’s words, for the praise of His glorious grace, the praise of His glory, or just for His glory. It’s the simple idea of the first question-and-answer in the shorter catechism. It doesn’t mean you should be reckless with your life. But it does mean staying alive is not an ultimate good. Staying alive is not in itself an ultimate good!

The ultimate good is how your life is used, for the glory of God, how you spend it. If you get the coronavirus and die, taking care of other people, that’s a life well spent and, in a way, a happy death. There’s nothing wrong with that. Our primary mission is not just to protect ourselves, its to make sure our lives are instruments in God’s hands.

You don’t have to be foolish. I personally would not get on a cruise ship right now. I would not get on a cruise ship with an elderly parent right now. But staying alive is not the ultimate good. The glory of God is the only ultimate good, renouncing everything—everything!—to be His disciple.

https://cpcissaquah.org/sermons/christ-in-the-highest-place-pt-2/