Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given
to you as well. (Matthew 6:33 NIV)
And that putting first often meant a letting go of everything personal....
What is disappointment to us? Can we always say that disappointment which we
think is disappointment with the Lord and over His things is because we did so
much want the Lord to have what He wanted irrespective of our interests at all;
we were prepared to let everything go, WE were
not mixed up in this thing somehow? In the Lord getting what He wants, we see
ourselves figuring in some way. It has to be a very sharp instrument that gets
in between those two things and defines them because they are so mixed up. Is it
not true that faith wavers, weakens and ofttimes goes right down and under when
in the way of the Lord's interests ourselves are
entirely shut out?
What is the key to faith then? The key to faith is this dividing of soul and
spirit, or, in other words, it is the complete abnegation of self-interests –
not in the Buddhist sense of annihilation, but in the sense of God's interests
becoming positive and predominant. That is where the battle of faith rages; it
rages upon that ground always. If we were so utterly – and not one of us really
is – if we were so utterly consumed for the Lord's interests alone that no other interest
in our lives had any precedence or power to govern us, we would be in victory
all the time. It is this completely disinterested concern for what the Lord
wants that is the key to faith. If Israel in the wilderness had taken this
attitude – "Well, this is a very difficult experience, but the Lord is after
something, the Lord wants something, and He evidently knows that that is the
best way to get it; all right, I am with Him, I may lose everything, I may
suffer the loss of all things, but it is what the Lord wants that matters. The
Lord wants us in that land; well, if it means everything, to be there for the
Lord's pleasure, that is the thing that matters." If that had been their
attitude, do you think they would have journeyed forty years in the wilderness
round and round, do you think at the border of the land they would have been
turned back to perish in the wilderness? You can see in the consummation that
next generation which did go in, went in on this matter of faith only. The whole
story is based upon faith.