Today, we shall look at why one needs to consecrate his life to God. Our being Born Again is the beginning of a new life. It is the beginning of our spiritual journey.
Just as babies need to grow after birth, we Born Again believers need to grow step by step after we are regenerated.
So, the next step in your spiritual journey is to give yourself to the Lord. This is to consecrate yourself to Him.
The very next step after repentance is consecration. Consecration is the response of a repentant heart. If you have truly repented, you will immediately like to consecrate your life to Christ.
For instance: Just as a child obeys his parents because he wants to please them, so does a person who has truly repented consecrate him or herself to the Lord because of what God did for him.
Now, know this: Because of the prize Jesus paid for us, because of what He suffered for us, because of what He is doing for us right now, He calls every Born-Again believer to a life of total consecration.
You cannot reach spiritual maturity without consecration because consecration is the basis for every spiritual experience.
What does consecration mean? Biblically, consecration means living a life completely surrendered to the Lord, accepting His will for us and seeking that will each day in all things. For instance, the rich young ruler could not surrender all to Jesus. He lacked consecration. (Matt. 19:16-30). Even you, there are certain things God tells you not to do, but you are not willing to obey.
Consecration is your giving yourself to the Lord to become ‘a living sacrifice’ as Paul says in Romans 12:1. Consecration is a life where Christ is truly the Lord (Rom. 10:9-10).
Many confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour of their lives. But in reality, their confession is not true because such people are still doing things their own way, and not according to the Word of God.
When you consecrate yourself to the Lord, you are saying, “Lord Jesus, I am totally Yours. I am for Your use.”
Why should one consecrate himself to the Lord? 1. You consecrate yourself to the Lord so that you can walk in His way. Before you were saved, you walked in your own way, made your own decisions, and chose your own direction. But after you were saved, God wants you to walk in His way (the Narrow or Strait Way) (Matt. 7:13-14; Lk. 13:24). But if you don’t give yourself to Him, how can you know what His way is?
Consecrating yourself to the Lord keeps you in His way, and saves you from taking your own way – The Broad Way. You can pray saying, “Lord, I don’t want to make my own decision or take my own way. I want to be kept in Your way. So, Lord Jesus, I give myself to You.”
2. You should consecrate yourself to God so you can grow in life. With any physical life, after birth comes growth. In the same way, when Christ comes into us His intention is for His divine life in us to grow. But any kind of life, even the divine life of Christ in us needs the proper environment and opportunity to grow.
Your surrendering yourself to Him provides the best opportunity for His life to grow in you. As you surrender every part of your being and every aspect of your life to Him, you give His life the best opportunity to grow in you.
When you keep yourself in your own hands without consecrating yourself to the Lord, you may not feel that certain things are wrong, and you are unable to tell whether or not something is of God. Your lack of consecrating yourself to the Lord hinders the life within. The life in you simply doesn’t function that well because it does not have the opportunity to develop.
But when you surrender yourself to the Lord, you provide the best opportunity for His life to grow and develop in you. Spontaneously, you can sense what is pleasing to Him and what is not; what is of God and what is not. This sensation comes from the functioning of God’s divine life in you. Your consecration is what activates this life function that gives you the sense of the life of God in you. As you go along and obey God by this sense, you grow in the divine life in a real and practical way.
3. You should consecrate your life to God so that He can work in you. Before you can effectively work for God, God needs to work in you first. Even though you are saved, He still has much work to do in you. He has to conform your thoughts, feelings, decisions, and inner disposition, your whole being to the image of Jesus Christ, His Son.
God is surely omnipotent, but in His relationship with us He is not a dictator. He respects your human will and doesn’t force His work on you. He wants and needs your consent in order to work freely in you.
Your consecration is your consent, since God can only work in you if you permit Him to do so. This explains why a person can be genuinely saved for years, and yet has little or no growth in the divine life and little or no change in his being.
God will wait until you give Him the permission to work on you for His purpose. So, instead of letting your time slip away or resisting His work in you, you can pray to Him saying, “Lord, I give You the full permission to work in me. I offer myself willingly to You. Lord, I open the door of my heart to You. Please come into every room in my heart and conform me to the image of Christ in every way, IJN.”
4. You should consecrate yourself to the Lord in order to enjoy the riches of His salvation. God’s salvation is full of riches. It includes being saved from eternal perdition, but God’s salvation encompasses so much more.
When we were saved, God blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Eph. 1:3; 2 Pet. 1:3).
The divine life – Christ’s perfect humanity and living, His death, His resurrection, His victory over Satan, His ascension over all things, all are yours, but without consecrating yourself to Him, you have no way to enter into the enjoyment of all of these blessings. You have them in fact, but for you to enjoy them in your daily life, you must consecrate your life to God.
In this respect, consecration is like a gate or a door to enter into a building, you must go through a door if you don’t know matter what wonderful thing awaits you on the other side, you can’t enjoy or participate in it.
It is there but you are on the other side. Consecration is the door that you must enter through in order to enjoy all the riches of God’s salvation. You can pray saying, “Lord, I just don’t want to know about the package in Your salvation. I want to enjoy them too. So, Lord, here I am. I give myself to You fully. I belong to You. Lead me by Your Spirit into the experience and enjoyment of all you have for me in Your salvation.”
If you are saved, you have taken the initial step on your spiritual journey. The next step is to consecrate yourself to the Lord. When you do, you will be kept in God’s way, grow in His life, and enjoy the riches of His full salvation. Whether you are newly saved or you have been saved for a while, every one of us should give himself to the Lord. Even if you never heard of consecration before, you can still present yourself to the Lord right now. He will be happy and willing to receive your consecration at any time.
Watch out for the Good News from the Pulpit.
Your friend, I. I. Madubunyi (Senior Pastor, HOG).
No comments:
Post a Comment