The command is yield yourselves, not a certain portion of your time,
nor a certain portion of your money, nor a certain portion of your
effort, nor your sins, nor your depraved appetites, nor your forbidden
indulgences. You cannot consecrate your alcohol, nor your tobacco, nor
your opium, nor your card-playing, nor your dancing, nor your
theatre-going to God. He wants none of these things. All actual and known
sins must be abandoned at conversion. Consecration is for a subsequent
and a deeper work. None but a Christian believer can thus present his body
unto the Lord. Sinners may repent, but Christians are enjoined to
"yield themselves unto God, as those who are alive from the dead;" not
as those who are "dead in trespasses and sins." Whatever surrender the
sinner may and must make in order to be saved, the believer must make a
deeper, fuller, more complete surrender, of a different character and
for a different purpose. That purpose is that he may be wholly
sanctified, filled with the Spirit, and used to the utmost extent of
his capacity for the glory of God. Consecration means yielding
yourselves unto God. When you yield yourself you yield everything else.
All the details are included in the one surrender of yourself.
And remember, also, that your consecration is not to God's service, not
to His work, not to a life of obedience and sacrifice, not to the
church, not to the Christian Endeavor, not to the Epworth League, not
to any organization, not to the cause of God; it is to God Himself.
"Yield yourselves unto God." It is, therefore, a personal transaction
between a personal human being and a personal God. Your work, your
obedience, your sacrifice, your right place and your allotted duty,
will all follow in due time. The next sacrifice to be made by the
Christian priest, is that of testimony and thanksgiving. "By Him,
therefore," says the author of the Hebrews, "let us offer the sacrifice
of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving
thanks to His Name."
And the next priestly offering of the Christian is a holy life, for the
inspired author goes on in the next verse, "But to do good, and to
communicate forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased."
Offer, then, beloved, the body, with the soul and spirit; offer the
fruit of the lips and offer the fruit of the life, and you will walk
worthily of your priesthood. Glory!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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