“Then Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed Thee…” Mark 10:28

While reading Mark 10, I was impressed by the dialogue held between Jesus and His disciples. After the Lord inquires of the disciples intentions to stick around, Peter and the disciples reveal how they had already radically abandoned everything of themselves to follow Jesus. Over the years I’ve sensed this same dialogue penetrating my heart, and I’m exposed by His pointed question, “Have I entirely abandoned myself and followed Jesus?” The answer that surfaced through this question can be pretty humbling.

The beginning of this sobering answer was given to me while I was looking at a portion of the Old Testament. The book of Ruth brings us up to speed with the story of a woman who had been away from home in a foreign land. After her husband and two sons die, Naomi (the prodigal Israelite) set out to return to the land of promise that her family had abandoned in search for greener grass. Alongside are her two daughter-in-laws, Orpah and Ruth. Traveling through the countryside in grief, Naomi turns and asks her two daughters-in-law/widows to turn back to what was familiar to them and be comforted there. An emotional Orpah heard the words of her mother-in-law and didn’t miss a beat, kissing goodbye she turned around and returned to the land of Moab. Interestingly enough, Ruth, a civilian of Moab just like Orpah, does not return but abandons herself to stand by Naomi, even though it meant difficulty and dismal hope.

I believe the answer to my question on abandonment begins here with Ruth.

The commitment that Ruth displays here is what the Lord desires of us. True abandonment unto Christ begins with a commitment that willingly abandons our natural desire to satisfy our selfish ambitions, then accompanied by a desire to give love without expecting anything in return. This is a picture of what it truly means to abandon “self”. As selfish sinful beings we innately desire to benefit ourselves through all opportunities, and at the expense of others. If we are really honest, we will notice that our priorities are often founded on what we are receiving from our surroundings, circumstances, church, relationships, and even our faith. Neglecting the desire to satisfy the lust of your flesh and mind allows us to be entirely available to abide with the Holy Spirit who empowers us to honor and love the Lord with a pure heart.

“What’s so wrong with benefiting from our walk with the Lord?” you ask.

The answer is…nothing.

It’s not wrong to benefit from the Lord; in fact it’s naturally going to happen when abiding close to Jesus Christ. The fact is it will happen so naturally that you don’t need to pursue it. Whenever one seeks to abandon self while still holding to the natural ambitions, they are torn between the conflict of their old nature and the spirit. The old nature holds us captive from moving fully into the liberty and new life God desires to generate within us. We see this illustrated with Orpah and Ruth. Orpah bailed on the awesome things God had in store and returned to the land of Moab, which is a picture of the flesh in the Old Testament. Ruth, however, commits to the Lord entirely, abandoning her familiarity and placing herself entirely in God’s hands.

Pursuing Jesus only for His blessings is not true abandonment. Pursuing Christ only for his blessings is satisfying a natural lust to benefit ourselves. To truly love a person is pursuing them to serve and honor them, not ourselves. This would be true abandonment to follow Christ.

It’s kind of like another story in the bible called “the prodigal son”. This kid looks at his dad and only loves what his dad has to offer, not the father himself. So he takes the blessings of the father and runs off selfishly indulging his own ambitions and desires, eventually finding that this type of lifestyle leads to a pig-pen of problems. He was empty and hungry, dirty and helpless, homeless and friendless. So the son realizes the need for his father and upon return encounters the “results” of being home. A ring, a robe, and a party…but I reckon these weren’t the things that really touched the heart of the prodigal son, he had known what it was to have rings, robes, and parties. It was the source of these gifts that was the factor of fulfillment. The love relationship of the father is what brought completion.

Oswald Chambers said this about abandonment to Jesus:

“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.” All that is the result of being right with God, but that spirit is not of the essential nature of Christianity. Abandonment is not for anything at all. We have got so commercialized that we only go to God for something from Him, and not for Himself. It is like saying, “No, Lord, I don’t want Thee, I want myself; but I want myself clean and filled with the Holy Ghost; I want to be put in Thy showroom 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.

When we come up against the barriers of natural relationship, where is Jesus Christ? Most of us desert Him—“Yes, Lord, I did hear Thy call; but my mother is in the road, my wife, my self-interest, and I can go no further.” “Then,” Jesus says, “You cannot be my disciple.”

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. Beware of stopping short of abandonment to God. Most of us know abandonment in vision only.”

Oswald Chambers, Excerpt on Abandonment from “My Utmost for His Highest”

With this said I realize, as you probably do, that our abandonment to Jesus is often carried out with a selfish consumer mindset. May we be like Ruth, committed selflessly out of love and devotion to the person, and not the blessing.