We can cooperate with Christ in His heavenly ministry today – in the day of His warfare – by having an absolute and thorough consecration to the Lord. Actually, “the fullness of one’s experience of life depends on the fullness of one’s experience of consecration” (W. Lee, Experience of Life).
What is consecration? What is the basis of consecration? What’s the motive, the meaning, the purpose, and the result of consecration?
Do we consecrate to the Lord once and for all?
We need to see and realize what consecration is, what is its purpose, and what does it result in, if we want to have a thorough and absolute consecration.
Our experience of consecration
There are five main points related to our experience of consecration – the basis, the motive, the meaning, the purpose, and the result of consecration. Consecration is an experience of life – as we grow and develop in the divine life, we enter into a deeper and higher experience of consecration where we have a more thorough and more full consecration.
If we pursue the experience of consecration, we will grow in life, and as we grow in life, we will have a more thorough consecration. Consecration is not a “feeling” or a “demand”, and it not even “an attitude of life” – it is a normal experience of life.
The basis, meaning, purpose, and result of consecration
The basis of our consecration is God’s purchase (1 Cor. 6:19-20; Rom. 14:8). We can give ourselves to the Lord and we can give Him more ground in our being because God purchased us. He paid the highest price and He died for us so that we would no longer live to ourselves but to Him who died for us. Based on the blood of Christ, based on the price He paid for us – and not based on our merit or achievement – we can consecrate ourselves to the Lord.
The motive of our consecration is God’s love (2 Cor. 5:14-15; Rom. 12:1). The reason and the motive we consecrate ourselves to the Lord is that God loved us and we love Him back. The sweetness, the intention, and the vitality of our consecration is love. O, Lord, constrain me with Your love! O, tsunami of love – flow in! Your mighty love, o God, constraineth me! When we see God’s love toward us we are moved, touched, melted down, constrained, and emboldened to just consecrate our all to Him in love.
The meaning of our consecration is to be a sacrifice (Rom. 12:1; Num. 28:2-3). What does it mean to be a consecrated person? It means that you consecrate your spirit to contact the Lord, your soul to enjoy the Lord and express Him, and your body to glorify and magnify Him. It means that you become a sacrifice, a continual burnt offering for God’s food. We lay our hands on Christ to be identified with Him as the burnt offering and we become a sacrifice for His satisfaction. We offer our whole being for God’s satisfaction and desire to gain a corporate Body.
The purpose of our consecration is to let God work in us so that we might work for God (Eph. 2:10; Isa. 64:8; Phil. 2:12-13; 1 Cor. 15:10). We let God work in us first and then we can work for God. It is God who operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure. We do not consecrate ourselves to Him for the purpose of working for Him; rather, we allow God first to operate in us so that we may choose and work for God’s good pleasure. God must first have the ground to work in us and operate in us before we can work for Him.
The result of our consecration is to abandon our future (Lev. 1:9; cf. 6:10-13). Our future is God Himself, and our destiny is to become “ashes” (this is the result of the burnt offering). Our future is no longer our own, and we are not working for a career or to become someone – we abandon our future. A big bull when it is being sacrificed loses all his function, purpose, future, and even his being – he becomes ashes for God’s satisfaction. God wants us to become ashes for His food, His satisfaction, so that He may get the glory. To the world we are “ashes”, to God it is a sweet-smelling savor and something very precious.
The ashes become the New Jerusalem
In Leviticus 6 we see that the ashes which result from the burnt offering are dealt with in a very stately manner, because they are sacred to God. Everything related to the carrying out of the ashes outside the camp was stately and very honorable. God has a high regard for the result of our consecration.
Do not despise the result of consecration – don’t consider it as being insignificant. What we do as consecrated ones must result in the building up of the Body of Christ as a miniature of the New Jerusalem!
To us our consecration and its result is extraordinary, but to the people in the world it is just ashes. BUT GOD REGARDS THESE ASHES!
These ashes become the New Jerusalem! Christ’s death brings us to ashes, and in His resurrection these ashes become gold, pearls, and precious stones, which come out of the transformation of the ashes!
Our daily consecration and our continual consecration brings us to be transformed to become God’s masterpiece, His treasure, the New Jerusalem, for His universal and corporate glorious expression! What a glory!
Lord Jesus, thank You for dying for us and paying the highest price. Based on Your sacrifice we consecrate ourselves to You. Thank You for Your love for us, Lord, which constrains us to give ourselves to You and consecrate to You. Lord, we love You! We want to be a continual burnt offering for Your satisfaction. May the fire of our consecration never go out in our life. We want to allow You to work in us so that we might work for You. Dear Lord, obtain the precious and highly regarded ashes which become the New Jerusalem! Our future is Yours! We abandon our future to You to be for You and in You!
References and Further Reading
- Sharing inspired from, The Experience of Life ch. 3 (by Witness Lee), and brother Ed’s sharing in the message, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on the Crystallization-Study of Psalms (2), week 17.
- Also recommended: seeing the highest revelation of Christ and willingly consecrating ourselves to Him;
- Hyms on this topic:
# Thy mighty love, O God, constraineth me, / As some strong tide it presseth on its way, / Seeking a channel in my self-bound soul, / Yearning to sweep all barriers away.
# Your love constrains me to give my all to You. / Lord, I can’t help it; my heart is drawn to You. / Oh what a privilege! I give myself to You!
# Consecrated is Thy temple, / Purged from every stain and sin; / May Thy flame of glory now be / Manifested from within.
# Oh, may Thy Cross within me / Deepen its work and burn / In me enlarge Thy measure, / And me to ashes turn. - Picture source: lovely flowers.
Amen!!….