Dying in the Lord~ 18

We are filled with eternal life.

He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. (Matthew 10:39)

And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. (Matthew 19:29)

It is in the surrender, the relinquishing, the committing that we gain the desires of our heart.

We do not know what we truly desire. We do not know our own destiny. We do not know even our true name. But God knows all these things very well. We must consider the goodness and power of the Lord, realizing He is bringing us to all we desire.

If we struggle to maintain our own way before the Lord, insisting on saving our own life, our own desires, we will lose everything. It is only as we let go and trust God that God is able to bring us to perfect love, perfect joy, perfect peace.

We are not teaching passivity-that the believer is to abandon his desires pretending he doesn't care what he receives or what happens to him. The individual who is bound by passivity is double-minded and will receive nothing from the Lord.

God commanded us to ask that we may receive. We are to give thanks to God continually, letting our requests be made known to him.

The reader may find it difficult to reconcile our teaching of committal with a clear, decisive approach to letting God know what our desires are.

It is in the battling onward in prayer, continually informing God of our desires, that our character is formed, that our desires are refined until we are moving toward the love, joy, and peace we truly desire. Many of our early desires are not what we truly want. God knows this and steers us away from what is hurtful and unfruitful. How our adamic nature howls in unbelief!

It is the person who seeks God continually that attains the desire of his heart. Yet he learns that in his seeking he continually must surrender his burden to the Lord. Otherwise he finds himself grasping, straining, cutting himself off from the flowing of God's Spirit, from resurrection life.

Continued. Dying in the Lord~ 19