When trials press you, when despondency and dark unbelief control your thoughts, when selfishness molds your actions, you do not see your need of God and of a deep and thorough knowledge of His will. You know not the will of God, neither can you know it while you live for self. You rely upon your good intentions and resolutions, and the principal sum of life is composed of resolutions made and resolutions broken. What you all need is to die to self, cease clinging to self, and surrender to God. Gladly would I comfort you if I could. Gladly would I praise your good qualities, good purposes, and good acts; but God was not pleased to show me these. He presented before me the hindrances to your gaining the noble, elevated character of holiness needful for you to have that you may not lose the heavenly rest and immortal glory He would have you attain. Look away from yourselves to Jesus. He is all and in all. The merits of the blood of a crucified and risen Saviour will avail to cleanse from…
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."
EGW's emphasis on 'dying to self' and surrendering to God directly reflects the principle of being 'crucified with Christ' as expressed in Galatians 2:20. Both passages highlight the need to relinquish self-centeredness and embrace a life centered on Christ.
"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."
The call to 'die to self, cease clinging to self, and surrender to God' in the EGW passage closely parallels Jesus' teaching in Matthew 16:24 about denying oneself and taking up one's cross. Both emphasize self-denial as a prerequisite for following Christ.