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March 12, 2008
ABANDONMENT
Then Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have left all,
and have followed Thee... .
Mark 10:28
http://www.SearchGodsWord.org/desk/?query=mr+10:28&sr=1
Our Lord replies in effect, that abandonment is for Himself, and not
for what the disciples themselves will get from it. Beware of an
abandonment which has the commercial spirit in it - "I am going to
give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I
want to be made holy." All that is the result of being right with
God, but that spirit is not of the essential nature of Christianity.
Abandonment is not for anything at all. We have got so commercialized
that we only go to God for something from Him, and not for Himself.
It is like saying, "No, Lord, I don't want Thee, I want myself; but I
want myself clean and filled with the Holy Ghost; I want to be put in
Thy show room and be able to say - 'This is what God has done for
me.'" If we only give up something to God because we want more back,
there is nothing of the Holy Spirit in our abandonment; it is
miserable commercial self-interest. That we gain heaven, that we are
delivered from sin, that we are made useful to God - these things
never enter as considerations into real abandonment, which is a
personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself.
When we come up against the barriers of natural relationship, where
is Jesus Christ? Most of us desert Him - "Yes, Lord, I did hear Thy
call; but my mother is in the road, my wife, my self-interest, and I
can go no further." "Then," Jesus says, "you cannot be My disciple."
The test of abandonment is always over the neck of natural devotion.
Go over it, and God's own abandonment will embrace all those you had
to hurt in abandoning. Beware of stopping short of abandonment to
God. Most of us know abandonment in vision only.
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