CONSECRATION
03rd May 2017
In a book that I read recently there was a chapter on “Consecration” which I found very challenging. I immediately found myself singing the hymn, “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee, take my moments and my days, let them flow in ceaseless praise.”
I then thought back to the days when we had our youth group meeting in “The Loft” in Cornwall, and we were laying down the challenge to our young people, to be ready and willing to pray, “Lord, whatever you say we will do, wherever you send we will go - at whatever cost.”
We read the life story of Jim Elliot, who had been one of the 5 missionaries martyred at the hands of the Auca Indians in Ecuador, and whose most famous saying is, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
I remember when Reinhard Bonnke was speaking at Eagle Camp, giving us all a tremendously stirring and challenging message. At the end he turned to the band and asked, “Can we finish with “I surrender all?” The song was too old to be in their repertoire and I seemed to be the only one who could play it from memory, so I got on the piano and we sang, “All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give, I will ever love and trust Him, All to him a freely give. I surrender all.....”
John Wesley whose ministry I firmly believe rescued this country from anarchy and revolution said, “Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be clergymen or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon Earth.”
At this critical time in our nation and world we should not be saying, “God, what are you doing for me?” rather, “God, let me live in such consecration and obedience to your will, that Your kingdom comes and Your will is done on this earth.”
by Charles Sibthorpe
