Tito Colliander: The Transfer of Love from Self to Christ

If we move out of our self, whom do we encounter? asks Bishop Theophan. He supplies the answer at once: We meet God and our neighbor. It is for this very reason that denying oneself is a stipulation, and the chief one, for the person who seeks salvation in Christ: only so can the center of our being be moved from self to Christ, who is both God and our neighbor.
This means that all the care, concern and love that we now lavish on ourselves is then quite naturally and without our noticing it transferred to God and thereby to our fellowmen.
+Tito Colliander, from Way of the Ascetics, Chapter 7 On the Transfer of Love from the Self to Christ.