Monday 9 March 2015

Reckless Abandonment

Recently I was reading a book called the Young Lady In Waiting and was reminded how important it is to abandon ourselves to Christ. We say that we are Christians but are we really abandoned to Christ? Do we fully give up everything to follow Christ? Do we deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him?

But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:7-11 (NKJV)


The word 'abandon' means to leave completely and finally, to forsake utterly, to desert and to yield oneself without restraint or moderation.  Abandonment is the surrendering of everything to gain the One thing, to gain Jesus. It is not about forsaking the world so that you could gain rewards, that is a part of it but abandonment is about fully pursuing Jesus. It is about having Jesus as our only priority and our only focus. 

Being fully abandoned to Christ means that we have a strong and a passionate desire for Him, that we have a desire to please Him and to do His will. Being fully abandoned means that we surrender everything to Him whether it is our dreams or our worries. When we are abandoned to Christ, we allow the Holy Spirit to have the preeminence in us. Our flesh no longer has dominion in us. 


Abandonment is saying yes to God. When we say yes to God, we don't consider what other people may think or say. We recklessly go after God. We recklessly say yes to His will and His promises. A lot of times, we over think before doing something. Usually when we do this, we don't really think that what God is saying is right or true. We try to analyze it and put it into our own human understanding but this can't work. There are many things that God will tell us to do that we don't understand or are not in our comfort zone but we have to trust God. We have to recklessly go after the things of God and forsake our own reasoning.

24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? Matthew 16:24-26 (NKJV)

Denying ourselves calls for us to take up our cross, to crucify the flesh, to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. When we give our lives to Christ, we are telling Him to have complete control and to take over. We are saying 'I give myself away so You can use me'. Abandoning may not be easy but it is worth it. It's going to be worth it! When we lose our lives for Christ, we find it in Him because in Him is eternal life.

When we recklessly abandon the world and say yes to Christ, we are gaining more than we could ever imagine. We are gaining eternal life with our Bridegroom God. Let us seek to abandon everything so that we would gain Christ.

All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give; I will ever love and trust Him in His presence daily live. I surrender all, I surrender all. All to Thee, my blessed Saviour, I surrender all.


4 comments:

  1. Not everyone is brave enough to abandon for Christ. Kudos to you. May you continue to inspire others to do the same. :)

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  2. I admire your courage. :) Trust is a must.

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    Replies
    1. Trust definitely is needed. Thanks for visiting Andre!

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