Again and again you will get up to what Jesus Christ wants, and every time you will turn back when it comes to the point, until you abandon resolutely.
Errant Nation
For many centuries the errant nation of Israel had wandered far from their God. They worshipped other gods and felt God’s rod of discipline on their back in Babylon. They abandoned their mission to proclaim to the nations the One and only true God. They had become proud in their foolish hearts and missed the visitation of their God.
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.
Abandonment is not for anything at all.
It is like saying, No, Lord, I don't want You, I want myself; but I want myself clean and filled with the Holy Ghost; I want to be put in Your 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.
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.
To say Thank God, I know I am saved and sanctified is in the sight of God the acme of humility, it means you have so completely abandoned yourself to God that you know He is true.
Life must be much less than it need be if you are not going all the way with the Lord; and what obtains in the matter of our consecration to the Lord, our entire and complete abandonment to Him in our life and our complete cut with all that is not of the Lord, obtains in the realm of service.
The thing that tells for God is not your relevant consistency to an idea of what a saint should be, but your real vital relation to Jesus Christ, and your abandonment to Him whether you are well or ill.
Anxiety of Many
Sadly, in this increasingly dark world, many lives are in a state of unbroken anxiety. Other fret and fume, while others search relentlessly for unachievable answers. To be perfectly at rest amid the hurly-burly of daily life is a secret worth knowing. It is only achieved in a life abandoned to the Lord – a life that trusts His Word. Looking away from the raging world and fixing your eyes upon Jesus. It is achieved by the one that will come to Him – and rest.
Practical work may be a competitor against abandonment to God, because practical work is based on this argument - Remember how 'useful you are here, or - Think how much value you would be in that particular type of work.
We have to battle through our moods into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus, to get out of the hole-and-corner business of our experience into abandoned devotion to Him.
Jesus Christ wants our absolute abandon of devotion to Himself.
The one mark of a saint is the moral originality which springs from abandonment to Jesus Christ.
The saint realizes that it is God Who engineers circumstances, consequently there is no whine, but a reckless abandon to Jesus.
If you abandon to Jesus, and come when He says Come, He will continue to say Come through you; you will go out into life reproducing the echo of Christ's Come.
That is the result in every soul who has abandoned and come to Jesus.
No one will think that this is the call for passivity, for abandon of concern for the things of the Lord; but it is possible for us to have the things of the Lord on our hearts and yet not to have faith in God about them.
Not Divine, colossal things which could be recorded as marvellous, but ordinary, simple human things which will give evidence to God that I am abandoned to Him?
There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him the abandoned tokens of how genuinely we do love Him.
Abandon to God is of more value than personal holiness.
Perfect love casts out all that when once we are abandoned to God.
When we are abandoned to God, He works through us all the time.
Yes, prophets and apostles could make mistakes, and they did; but there is this about it - because they had seen, and were utterly abandoned to that which they had seen of the Lord's mind, the Lord was abundantly able to come in on their mistakes and sovereignly overrule them and teach His servants something more of Himself and His ways.
The indefinite people, those who are not meaning business, who are not abandoned, never do learn anything of the Lord.
We have to come to the point where we deliberately decide as to whether the Lord is worthy of this, and abandon ourselves to it because of our appreciation of Him, the Master.
the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity. Let us not again be laying the foundation of repentance and abandonment of dead works (dead formalism) and of the faith [by which you turned] to God, Let us not repeat the teachings about purifying, the laying on of hands, the resurrection from the dead, and eternal judgment and punishment. [These are all matters of which you should have been fully aware long, long ago.] Hebrews 6:1-2
My experimental knowledge of salvation will be along the line of deliverance from sin and of personal holiness; but salvation means the Spirit of God has brought me into touch with God's personality, and I am thrilled with something infinitely greater than myself, I am caught up into the abandonment of God.
The fact that He saves from sin and makes us holy is part of the effect of the wonderful abandonment of God.
Abandonment never produces the consciousness of its own effort, because the whole life is taken up with the One to Whom we abandon.
Beware of talking about abandonment if you know nothing about it, and you will never know anything about it until you have realized that John 3:16 means that God gave Himself absolutely.
In our abandonment we give ourselves over to God just as God gave Himself for us, without any calculation.
The consequence of abandonment never enters into our outlook because our life is taken up with Him.
IF Then if you say that is you or that is me you will have to abandon your doctrine of total depravity, and you will have to come back to the place where you say there is good in us, after all!
When we are really in it by the urge of the Holy Spirit, the common features found in the Old Testament instruments will be found inwrought in us; and we shall be found an abandoned people unto this ONE THING – the Lord's burden and heart concern for His testimony in His people.
This abandon to the love of Christ is the one thing that bears fruit in the life, and it will always leave the impression of the holiness and the power of God, never of our personal holiness.
Paul demonstrated through his life a total abandonment to the Lord.
Abandoned to Him
Paul established the only principle, upon which the prisoner of Christ can stand – complete and utter imprisonment and abandonment to the Lord Jesus and His will.. so that every word that is spoken – is as from Him.. so that every step taken is guided from above – so that every undertaking.. shall be out from Him and not of ourselves.
Our Lord is carried beyond Himself with joy when He sees any of us doing what Mary did, not being set on this or that economy, but being abandoned to Him.
Eternal Father
Jesus is indeed the Eternal Father, and unlike human parents whose life fades and passes away like the grass of the field – eternal means forever and ever – Amen. He has promised never to leave us or abandon us as orphans.
We have to remember that God has called us for a purpose which will be realized as we abandon ourselves to Him.
Let us abandon all personal desires, and be filled with the Spirit of urgency – “straight away.” Those who know that they are called of God, and who definitely recognize the purpose of their life, will be wholly given up to it.
If you have only come the length of asking God for things, you have never come to the first strand of abandonment, you have become a Christian from a standpoint of your own.
If God does not, it is because you are not abandoned enough to Him, there is something you will not do.
The test of abandonment is in refusing to say - Well, what about this?
Immediately you allow the - what about this? - it means you have not abandoned, you do not really trust God.
Immediately you do abandon, you think no more about what God is going to do.
Abandonment means to refuse yourself the luxury of asking any questions.
If you abandon entirely to God, He says at once, Thy life will I give thee for a prey.
The way to get out of that state is to abandon to God.
When you do get through to abandonment to God, you will be the most surprised and delighted creature on earth; God has got you absolutely and has given you your life.
He too was scorned and spurned and He was soon to be falsely accused, perfidiously betrayed, abandoned and denied by His own dear friends, dishonestly judged by Jew and Gentile alike and treacherously killed.
Page after page Paul had contended with the Galatians because they had abandoned the liberty of the Christian faith, having been seduced by the Judaisers of the day..
While food and drink is not offered in pagan temples today, as in the days of Paul, there are many practices, religious observances, martial arts or various trends and customs that are not sinful, but could cause the one who has abandoned these traditions from their pre-salvation days, to be offended or distressed if a fellow-believer engages in them.
Loyalty in friendship is a grace that becomes all the more precious when despite intensifying hardships a friend is there to comfort and help... and the scriptures remind us never to abandon a friend - nor even to forsake the friends of your father or mother.
His saving grace is not only for the eternal ages to come but will be carried through to its ultimate completion, for He will never abandon any that have trusted in His name as Saviour and who have come to Him for pardon and peace.
Legalism is a creeping paralysis, and when the gospel of grace is abandoned for this teaching, it places a believer back under the law instead of promoting the freedoms we have in Christ.
Scripture is our secure guidebook, to return us into a right relationship with the Lord when we abandon the road of righteousness or stray from the path of peace.
When legalism is adopted as a requirement for righteousness, the glorious gospel of Christ, Who is our righteousness, is abandoned. When circumcision is insisted upon as necessary for salvation, the gospel of grace is nullified, for works of the Law have been added to Christ's finished work of Grace on the cross.
Paul refers to the believers at Thessalonica as dearly beloved brothers. Like Paul, his readers had abandoned their respective belief systems and placed their trust in Jesus as Saviour and thereby become members of God's family.
What a wonderful promise was given to that prideful and rebellious nation: that the Lord would not abandon His people, despite their repeated grievous sins against Himself..
Whether his enemy is a group or an individual person, the intense pressure the psalmist is under caused him to reaffirm his faith and testify that the Lord is His strength and stay... while momentarily mourning because of his oppression and asking why God had abandoned and rejected him.
A few chose to be strong and courageous by trusting the Lord and obeying His word, and they lived a victorious life for His praise and glory, as recorded in the Bible - but most abandoned the God of their fathers, disobeyed His word, lived a defeated life and did only those things which were right in their own eyes.
who cried out with joyful abandon: Hosanna to the Son of David..
May we live in a way that honour the Lord and sing out in joyful abandon like those little children in Jerusalem - for we have been saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ - our God and our Redeemer.
He was further saddened to see the rich young ruler, whom He loved so deeply, abandon the eternal riches he could find in Christ for love of his earthly wealth.
the Lord told Eve, the consequences of her sin would be that men and women would live in ongoing conflict, and un-abandoned competition with one another.
Israel had been sent into exile as a punishment for sinning against the Lord, but He had brought them out of exile once again, and the returnees great desire was to reinstate the Law of Moses, which had been abandoned for so long, and so they celebrated the Feast of Booths, as it is written, and offered the fixed number of burnt offerings daily, according to the ordinance, as each day required.
And yet these same friends would abandon Him, deny Him or betray Him in a few brief hours, so that the scriptures might be fulfilled which was spoke off by the prophets: even my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who did eat of my bread, has lifted up his heel against me - for it is written: I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.
Although he is grieved about Israel's ongoing apostasy and bemoans that they have wandered far from the safety of His protection, Micah nevertheless pleads with the Lord that He will never abandon them nor cast them adrift - taking God at His word, to keep His promises to a thousand generations.
The commitment Joshua made before the company, was designed to encourage everyone to make the right choice - to consciously reject the false gods of the Amorites and commit to obeying and trusting the true and living God of Israel. The people were obviously impacted by Joshua's impassioned plea, because they replied as one man - We will certainly not abandon the Lord to worship other gods.
The far-reaching significance of this choice cannot be measured, for it requires the abandonment of myself: my personal rights; my cherished interests and my own self-will, for His plans; His rights, His interests, and His will.
Darius ascended the throne of Persia, but the Temple of God remained abandoned and in ruins, while the people of God lived in their own, comfortable, panelled houses, which they had constructed, for their own use.
And so, at the start of the book of Haggai, we hear a strong rebuke from the God of Israel to these Israelite builders, who had built themselves panelled houses, but abandoned work on the Temple.
However, this final epistle of Paul, contains information about former Christian workers and mutual acquaintances, including Phygelus and Hermogenes, who had abandoned the apostle in his final hours.
Timothy had not abandoned Paul, like so many other Christian colleagues, so the apostle used this opportunity to encourage the younger man to remain faithful to his calling; to fan into flame his spiritual gift and never to be ashamed of the gospel he preached, for it is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe.
He will never abandon those that trust His word and honour His name - for those who believe are not condemned - but those who do not believe in His only begotten Son, are condemned already.
But just as God is faithful to His people Israel, we too have an assurance that we, who have been bought with the precious blood of Christ, will never be abandoned nor condemned, for there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus.
God has to set aside His people Israel for a time but God has not abandoned His earthly inheritance- for as Paul reminds us: if Israel's rejection has meant reconciliation of the world - what will their acceptance be but life from the dead.
He addressed many doctrinal issues that were inhibiting their spiritual development and gave some stern warnings to these carnally-minded Christians - appealing for them to abandon their worldly ways, cease from any internal disputes, and live in a bond of peace and brotherly love.
Paul seemed to labour the seriousness of all forms of sexual sins and the unholy abandonment of the godly relationship between a man and his wife, which is a sacred union..
Let us, therefore, with wholeness of heart; fervency of spirit; sincerity of soul and diligence of mind freely abandon the good to search for the very best, knowing that ALL who seek the Lord, will find Him to be rest for their soul; healing for their heart; hope for the future and life everlasting.
In verse 6 we read that the angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, have been kept, by God, in eternal bonds under darkness, waiting for the judgment of the great day.
The angels in this verse - who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, is speaking of those who rebelled with Satan, and also sinned in Genesis 6, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them.
Although all angels who chose to rebel with Satan lost their position in the holy, heavenly angelic realm... this group also abandoned their angelic form by taking on a human form, in order to have sex with human women, which resulted in a hybrid offspring, described in Genesis as giants or Nephilim.
The miracles Christ performed; His sacrificial death; His glorious resurrection, and His ascension into heaven, to sit on the right hand of God the Father, are a few of the prophecies within Peter's sermon, when he quoted David's words about Christ - that God would not abandon His soul to Hades, nor would He allow Christ Jesus, the Holy One of God, to decay in the grave.
