Abandonment for God or for Something from God?

I don’t know about you but just reading or hearing the word abandonment scares me a little bit. No one wants to be alone or left behind, but that’s exactly what God calls us to. He wants us to abandon everything from our life to follow him, no exceptions.But, we have to be careful and check our intentions when we make that decision. Is our abandonment for God or for something from God?

Related Content: The Greatness of Humility

Commercialism in our Society

We live in such a commercialized world today with content being hurled at us constantly. According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), we are bombarded with up to 10,000 ads a day or 3,650,000 per year! The AMA also states that people switch between screens up to 21 times in an hour.This equates to a person’s attention span holding for just 8 seconds. So, depending on your reading speed, I’m lucky if you have made it this far in the post!With so much competition, advertisers have learned to cater their ads to people on a more personal level. They try to sell us on an emotional level which turns the focus on us and our wants.I’m as guilty as anyone for falling for these messages from time to time. But, this is where we have to be careful not to let it get into our personal relationship with God.

Abandoning all for God

In Mark 10:28 Peter, one of the 12 disciples, is quoted with saying “We have left everything to follow you!” Peter didn’t say, “I am leaving everything behind because I want to be delivered from my sin and be made holy.” All that is the result of being right with God. Abandoning everything isn’t for anything at all it’s because we want all of God.We have become so commercialized in our thinking that we only go to God for something from Him, and not for Himself. That is like saying, “I don’t want all of you Lord, I just want the Holy Spirit so I can have a cleaned-up version of my current self.” If we only give up something to God because we want more back, the Holy Spirit is not in our abandonment. We are then left with a miserable feeling of commercial self-interest.

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Now, don’t lose heart, because all the things we want in return for our abandonment is what God will bless us with. It’s a natural byproduct of genuine abandonment of self to follow Jesus. We have to have the correct heart posture in giving all to Jesus in order for him to transform us and bless us with an abundant life.

Application Questions:

• Have you seen God bless you when you fully surrender to him?
• What helps keep you in the correct abandonment mind frame?