This week, Michael writes that a friend Rocky Fleming wrote a book about the journey to the inner chamber. In this allegory, the goal is to get across the obstacles surrounding the castle and then enter into the King’s court and into the King’s inner chamber. This is an analogy about entering into God’s presence. Over the door to the inner chamber is a sign that says, “He who enters in must enter with total abandonment and absolute trust.”
Jesus said, He who loses his life shall find it and he who finds his life shall lose it. He said, I am the narrow way and the narrow gate. I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the father except by me. He said, there is a broad way that leads to destruction. But I am the narrow gate and the narrow way that leads to life everlasting. 1 John 5:13 says, these things have I written to you so that you may know that you have life everlasting (eternal life).
The politically correct secular culture will say that Christianity is too exclusive. They say that it’s narrow minded and elitist. Likewise, the people of Jesus’ day asked him, “weren’t we good enough? Didn’t we do works in your name?” Jesus said to them, “depart from me ye workers of iniquity. I never knew you.”
To approach God’s throne of grace, we must enter through the narrow gate, Jesus. We must leave our selfish self at the door. In order to enter in, as Oswald Chambers said, we need to conduct our own “white funeral.” According to Galatians 2:20, I was crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
Oswald Chambers also said that the “kingdom of self” is heavily defended territory. However, Jesus said, he who loses his life shall save it and he who saves his life shall lose it. Total abandonment means to relinquish control of my own life to Him, giving up the option to reclaim it. In a wedding ceremony, the vow we make to God and to one another is to give up the right to ourselves in dedication to our spouse. Likewise, as sons and daughters of God, To bring ourselves through the narrow way, Jesus Christ, we need to leave our selfish selves at the gate.
To enter in we must enter on His terms, not ours. Jesus is the only way. On our own, we do not deserve God’s grace and mercy for salvation. For there is none good (in the flesh), no not one. However, Jesus Christ lived the perfect life. He who was without sin became the perfect sacrifice for sin on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in him. To approach God’s throne of grace, we must “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ”... clothed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before His throne. To forsake the devil and the ways of this world, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Resisting the devil is to turn our hearts unto the Lord ... to set our affections on things above and not on the things fo this world. When we walk in the light as he is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The cleansing is in the walking in the light.
Let's continue Michael's message on abandonment and trust in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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