Letting our requests be made known to God is approved in the Scriptures. Forcing ourselves and others so we can escape from the prisons God places us in, is an attempt to save our life. In so doing we shall lose our life.

We cannot be a true saint of God apart from denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following the Master. Whoever does not do so makes himself the prey of Satan. In fact, God Himself will send a strong delusion on him.

From Mark:

And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. (Mark 8:31-38)

Notice the emphasis on losing our soul. The Lord doesn't seem to be stressing that our soul will go to Hell necessarily but that we shall lose it if we seek to pursue our own course. It sounds as though our soul is something that has been given to us by the Lord. If we in turn give it back to the Lord, denying ourselves our most fervent desires, remaining as patiently and as cheerfully as we can in the prison where the Lord places us, we will be given back our soul now crowned with eternal life and righteousness.

But if we cling to our soul, building bigger barns to hold the possessions we have gained, then somehow our soul is removed from us and we are left a naked spirit. Perhaps this is what it means by being saved as by fire. The spirit is saved in the Day of the Lord but enters the Kingdom (if the Lord chooses to save the individual) as a small child who, devoid of all Kingdom inheritance and glory, begins life once again.

To be continued.