Consecration
Edward B. Dennett
Table of Contents
Consecration
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God” (Rom. 12:1).
Thine, Jesus, Thine,
No more this heart of mine
Shall seek its joy apart from Thee;
The world is crucified to me,
And I am Thine.
Thine — Thine alone,
My joy, my hope, my crown;
Now earthly things may fade and die,
They charm my soul no more, for I
Am Thine alone.
We may point out briefly the characteristics of the consecrated saint. First and foremost, he has no will. Like the Apostle, he says, “Not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Crucified with Christ, the will, connected as it is with the old man, is gone before God. . . . The will of Christ is our only law, and we are His, for His sole and absolute use. Then, also, the consecrated believer seeks only the exaltation of Christ. . . . Self disappears from his view, and the glory of Christ fills his soul.
Consecration lies in Christ having full control over the bodies of His people, so that they may be organs for the expression of nothing but Himself.
It is never well with us until we are held by the Spirit at the disposal of the One we love.
“The house was filled with the odor of the ointment” ( John 12:3). This was a matter of fact, but underlying the fact is the teaching that nothing is so fragrant to the heart of God, or to the hearts of the saints when in communion with Him, as an act of absorbing devotedness to Christ.
This is the secret of all blessing: giving the Lord the supreme place — thinking first of what is due to Him and losing sight of all else until this is rendered.
What is the meaning of that expression in the Song of Solomon, “Jealousy is cruel as the grave”? I will tell you how it presents itself to me. When a body is committed to the ground, the grave closes in over it and shuts out every other object — it possesses that body absolutely. Well, the Lord’s jealousy is like that. Do you suppose the Lord could contemplate with indifference our hearts going after this thing and that thing and the other thing which are contrary to Himself? No. If He loves us — and He does love us — He wants our whole hearts. Nothing less than our whole hearts will ever satisfy Him.
Christ Himself is our only true blessedness, and we never wholly live for God until Christ becomes everything to us.
“That in all things He might have the preeminence” (Col. 1:18). If I am not giving Christ the first place in my heart, I am not in accord with the mind of God.
The most miserable man on the face of the earth is the Christian who is trying to enjoy both worlds.
We are told that Solomon was seven years building the temple and thirteen years building his own house. I cannot doubt, therefore, that we are intended to learn that the mind of Solomon was more set upon his own house than upon the house of God. We have the same lesson taught us in Haggai 1. And it is a needed lesson, as we all know. See what money Christians will spend upon the adornments of their own houses compared with what they give for the furtherance of the house of God.
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