Abandonment to God

A book on my "want to read some day list" is Oswald Chambers biography Abandonment

to God. We want to be abandoned to God but the cross also means we have to go through abandonment.  It only through abandonment that we get to know Christ fully.

We see this modeled in the life of Israel that knew abandonment in three stages or movements.  The first was their calling where they experienced revelation and grace from God.  Then they went through a withdrawal of God's grace where they were wounded, felt deserted by God, and suffered great inner loss and pain.  Finally Israel experienced a return to God from separation to union with God.

God continually works through this painful process that both purifies and restores, empties and heals.  Crucifixion comes before resurrection and abandonment before close union with God.  The first movement of God's Spirit within us is repentance which eventually leads to intercession for others.  Prayer for others may be prayer for one particular person or may be for the whole world.

My prayer today is simply this to God:

"I offer myself to you O God.
To You and all I am and all I have.
I'm completely Yours God.
Do with me whatever You will."

The Key To Everything

"When we work, we work.  When we pray, God works."

Jack Hayford wrote a book many years ago called "The Key To Everything."  People who did not even read his book thought this was a presumptuous title at best.  Jack Hayford basically said that Jesus is the key to everything.  Although Jack has been a long time preacher and teacher and someone I highly respect, I would like to take a little different turn from what Jack was doing in his book. 

I believe Jesus is the door and gateway to everything but there are different keys God gives us for different things.  Right now I am on a three day fast and fasting is a spiritual key for spiritual breakthrough.  Jesus gave Peter "the keys of the kingdom" which was spiritual authority and power to bind and loose, to open doors for various people groups to come into God's kingdom.  One of the greatest keys that God gives each of us to use to come into His presence and grow in intimacy and spiritual fervor is the key of prayer.

Prayer is not only a way to bathe us into the presence of God but it also is the way God unmasks our false busy selves for the imposters they truly are.  The truth is none of us knows how to really pray or love God without God's help.  We need to ask God by the Holy Spirit's help to know God better (Ephesians 1:15-19).  Our prayers should simply be God's Spirit speaking to our spirit and surrendering that back to God (Romans 8:26-28). 

Prayer is praying God's Word back to God who does more than we could ever imagine with our prayers.  Prayer is not about focusing on ourselves or even asking God to change our circumstances.  What God wants to truly change is us!  Prayer is not so much about us getting things from God but its more about us getting more of God into us.

The Psalms is the church's prayer book and every time we look at the life of Jesus, he is falling down on his face in prayer!  God wants to invade our souls and the only way this happens is through a life of prayer.  One of the things God is teaching me is the prayer of abandonment.  This is where I get really still so that I can listen and hear the voice of God (Psalm 46:10).  God's grace stills our restless soul and fills us with the presence and peace of God.  Do you have fears?  Cast them into the loving arms of God.  The prayer of abandonment is where we depend solely on God for everything and abandon ourselves totally to God.  We learn the art of forgetting about ourselves in the silence and direct all our attention on God and the cross of Christ.

We do not try to figure out what sins to give to God but let the Holy Spirit of God examine our hearts and remove what needs to be removed.  God wants to purify our hearts and crucify our will.  When we abandon ourselves to God, God's heart melts our hearts and God's love fills our soul.  By dying to ourselves we find our life hidden in Christ and lost in God's love.  God wants to renovate our soul to Him.  We therefore begin to enter into what John says, "He that dwells in love, dwells in God (4:16).