This text appears to throw great light on the subject, for in the first clause the Psalmist actually pleads before God the recognised fact of a past and present consecration. He does not say, ‘I wish to be Thine,’ or ‘I hope to be Thine,’ or ‘I pray Thee to make me Thine,’ but he says, ‘Lord, I am Thine,’ and no one could say that unless he had already yielded himself to God. But it is not consecration only that is expressed when the believer says, ‘Lord, I am Thine;’ for the consecration of which I was speaking last Sunday is a human act,—it is our own surrender of our own powers to God; and when we look closely at anything we do we may well remember the words of the prophet, ‘How weak is thine heart!’ If we can truly say in faith, ‘Lord, I am Thine,’ we must rely on something a great deal better than our own consecration of ourselves. We belong to the Lord Jesus by virtue of the eternal covenant to which He referred when He said, ‘My Father which gave them Me is greater than all;’ we belong to Him because we have been made His own by redemption, so as to be parts of the ‘Church which He has purchased with His own blood;’ we belong to Him because we have been separated unto Him by the mighty power of the Holy Ghost, and so been ‘sanctified unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ;’ we belong to Him, for we have been made His own children by adoption, so that He speaks of us, saying, ‘I and the children whom Thou hast given Me;’ and we belong to Him, for we have been solemnly signed and sealed unto Him in our baptism, and in our own persons have deliberately ratified the covenant. So that when we say, ‘Lord, I am Thine,’ we do not merely refer to some one particular transaction of our own at some one particular time, but we look at the whole counsel and covenant of God,—at the great and perfect work of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost,—before which any feeble effort of our own minds is absolutely nothing; and, reviewing it all, we kneel down, with our hearts full of praise, and wonder, and say with the deepest thanksgiving, ‘Lord, I am Thine.’ It is clear, therefore, that these words, while they include personal consecration on our own part, express that which is infinitely greater: namely, the great grace of God Himself in redeeming us by the precious blood of the Lamb, and separating us as a holy people unto Himself. And now follows the question: When in this highest sense we can kneel down and really say with truth, ‘Lord, I am Thine,’ what is to follow? The words of the text supply us with a most important answer; for they teach that one of the great results will be believing prayer, and they show that when we are really His, and when we know that we are His, we are not to rest content with that sacred and unspeakable privilege, but to kneel down afresh and say, ‘Lord, I am Thine: save me.’