Consecrate Yourself
My last post was titled “Holiness Is Our Birthright”. Holiness, or sanctification, is all God’s work – we can never make ourselves holy. But we have a role to play. Our role, according to Scripture, is to consecrate our lives to Jesus. It is my experience that Christians don’t talk much about holiness. I think there is a fear that too much focus on ourselves gets in the way of the external work Jesus clearly calls us to. But the truth is that the latter cannot be accomplished apart from the former. It is not one or the other, it is both at the same time. Holiness is about becoming like Jesus. And until we are transformed, and continue to be transformed, we cannot live the way Jesus calls us to live, or do the work Jesus prepared for us to do from before the beginning of time.
To consecrate has to do with sacred dedication; it is to irrevocably and solemnly offer or dedicate to God our life and the ‘things’ in our life for His purposes and glory. What do we offer up to God? Everything, because it all belongs to Him – He owns the cattle on a 1000 hills. We consecrate all that we have and will ever have; all that we are and will ever be. We offer our time, talents, will, emotions, wealth, possessions, family, ministries, work, hobbies, plans, and desires; we offer our lives to God. We offer ourselves – spirit, soul, and body to Jesus for His purposes and His glory.
When we repent, we give God the sin and evil in our life – we turn from these things and turn to God. In consecration, we give God the good things in our life and tell Him, “Use these for your glory and your purposes”. Consecration is the antidote to forgetting God is the Giver of all these ‘things’ and turning them into idols. Consecration is an act of worship; it is rooted in humility.
A life that makes the ‘things’ God gives us into idols is a life that cannot be sanctified – it is a life apart from God, His blessings, and His purposes.
And while consecration is giving God the good things in our life for His purposes and glory, I also believe we can consecrate or offer up to him the hurt and pain in our lives as well. Jesus can restore the years eaten by the locusts, if we let Him.
In the Old Testament, God commanded His people to consecrate themselves and the elements they use to worship Him.
Joshua gave them this command the day before God led Israel into the Promised Land:
“Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you” (Joshua 3: 5 NIV).
God gave Moses the instructions to build the Tabernacle. Then God commanded Moses to consecrate the tabernacle and everything in it to Him.
“Take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle and everything in it; consecrate it and all its furnishings, and it will be holy. Then anoint the alter of burnt offering and all its utensils; consecrate the altar, and it will be most holy. Anoint the basin and its stand and consecrate them” (Exodus 40: 9 – 11 NIV).
Moses took common materials that were used to make the Tabernacle – the metals, fibers, and wood – and consecrated them to God for His purposes and for His glory. The Scripture says then “It will be holy”. Nothing Moses or the Israelites did made the materials holy. After the consecration, but only after consecration, God made what was common and ordinary, holy.
“Purify the altar by making atonement for it, and anoint it to consecrate it. For seven days make atonement for the altar and consecrate it. Then the altar will be most holy, and whatever touches it will be holy (Exodus 29: 36, 37 NIV).
Consecration and atonement purify. Together, they prepare the altar to be holy. In fact, so holy that whatever touches the altar will be holy.
“The Lord said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites . . . Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God. Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the Lord who makes you holy” (Leviticus 20: 1, 7, 8 NIV).
God commands consecration. Israelites are to consecrate themselves. It is God who makes us holy.
“And the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes and be ready by the third day, because on that day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people” (Exodus 19: 10, 11 NIV).
Consecration is related to washing their clothes or robes, which implies cleansing inside and out by physical washing and repentance. Together, these are preparation for entering into the presence of Holy God. Significantly, the same requirement is found in Revelation: “Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the City” (Revelation 22: 14 NIV). The ‘city’ is the “Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21: 2 NIV).
Leviticus 8 describes the instructions God gave Moses to consecrate and ordain Aaron and his sons so that they could begin their priesthood. These instructions foreshadow the words of Isaiah 61 that, I believe, describe our ordination and consecration into the Christian’s role as “priests of our Lord”.
“Then Moses took some of the anointing oil and some of the blood from the altar and sprinkled them on Aaron and his garments and on his sons and on their garments. So he consecrated Aaron and his garments and his sons and their garments” (Leviticus 8: 30 NIV).
From these Old Testament commands, we learn several things about consecration:
Consecration is commanded by God. We are commanded to consecrate ourselves. A “set aside” person, like Moses can also consecrate
God commands us to consecrate ‘things’
Consecrating something or someone is the necessary first step before that thing or person can be made holy
Consecration is preparation for a momentous event like entering the Promised Land (or Kingdom of God, for Christians), God entering the Tabernacle like a cloud, or entering into the presence of God and “seeing Him”, including, I believe worship
Whatever is consecrated is being offered to God for His purposes and glory
Consecration is not just an Old Testament command. Paul commands us to consecrate ourselves:
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer (consecrate) your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship (Romans 12: 1 NIV).
In Romans 6, Paul writes, “Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer (consecrate) yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness” (Romans 6: 13, 14 NIV).
Based on passages in the Old and New Testaments, I believe:
We are commanded to consecrate ourselves, but the Holy Spirit must partner with us
Consecration is offering ourselves to God – our lives and our ‘stuff’. And like the Tabernacle, God will make all we consecrate holy. After all, Paul tells us the Temple (or Tabernacle) is within us
Consecration is our act of worship
Only believers, those who have entered the Kingdom of God, can be consecrated. Therefore, justification must precede consecration
Progressive sanctification, or being made holy, cannot begin until we have consecrated ourselves and our things to Him. Consecration first, sanctification follows. Perhaps this is why some Christians are stuck in their walk with Him
What has been consecrated to God, God takes ownership of – satan cannot have it (and vice versa)
These last two points are especially important.
First, God can do anything. But I believe in God’s Kingdom progressive sanctification will not begin until we have first consecrated to God all that we have and all that we are. For example, in Exodus 40 God entered the tabernacle, but only after it had been consecrated. We must make a deliberate, sincere, and serious decision to acknowledge that it all comes from Him, it all belongs to Him, and to offer it all to Him for His purposes and glory. Before God moved Abraham needed to consecrate Isaac to God by laying Isaac down on the altar of sacrifice. Same for us.
These are major decisions which cannot be made apart from the Holy Spirit.
Some say that you consecrate only once. That may be true, but before I get out of bed in the morning, if I consecrate my day to Jesus – all that I say, see, think, and the works of my hands – I have a sense of God’s presence with me through the day. Not that the day is perfect, and not that I don’t sometimes find myself thinking, “Well, that wasn’t what I intended to do or say”, but it does make a difference in my walk with Him.
Second, this point is not Scriptural, at least I don’t have Scripture to back it up, but it makes sense to me: When I consecrate something to Jesus, I am offering it up to Him, telling Him, “This belongs to You”. In essence, He takes ownership of it. When I do that, I believe the thing I consecrated has been removed from the sphere of influence of satan, and placed in the sphere of or under the influence of Jesus. And the opposite is true: what I have held back for myself can be desecrated by satan who wants to “steal, kill, and destroy”.
God will sanctify all we give Him; what we hold back, even our lives, He won’t. Until we let go and offer our lives to Him, the journey of sanctification cannot begin. I guess that is what it means to “Surrender all to Jesus”.
Conclusion
God’s ultimate purpose is to sanctify us – make us holy – to make us like Jesus for His purposes and His glory. Holiness begins with us being born again – justified and living with Jesus in the Kingdom of God. But that is not the end-point of our life with Jesus; it is only the beginning. He has an amazing life planned for us, beginning with the first step on the journey of sanctification. The first step on that journey is consecration – offering ourselves, our ‘stuff’, plans, wants, desires, and will to Jesus – telling Him, “You own all of this, not me. You have entrusted it to me. I want it all to be used for your Kingdom purposes and Your glory”. Until we do this, although imperfectly, until we let go of our ‘very lives’, until we deny ourselves, pick up our cross daily, and follow Him, our journey of sanctification cannot begin.
But how? How do we surrender like this? For me, it begins with prayer. My next post is a prayer of consecration.
John