The Christian's Secret to a Happy Life

CHAPTER V. DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING CONSECRATION It is very important that Christians should not be ignorant of the temptations that seem to stand ready to oppose every onward step of their progress heavenward, and that are especially active when the soul is awakened to a hunger and thirst after righteousness and begins to reach out after the fullness that is ours in Christ. One of the greatest of these temptations is a difficulty concerning consecration. The seeker after holiness is told that he must consecrate himself, and he endeavors to do so. But at once he meets with a difficulty. He has done it as he thinks, and yet he finds no difference in his experience. Nothing seems changed as he had been led to expect it would be, and he is completely baffled and asks the question almost despairingly, ìHow am I to know when I am consecrated?î The one chief temptation that meets the soul at this juncture is the same that assaults it all along the pathway at every step of its progress, namely, the question as to feelings. We cannot believe we are consecrated until we feel that we are, and because we do not feel that God has taken us in hand, we cannot believe that he has. As usual, we put feeling first, and faith second, and the fact last of all. Now Godís invariable rule in everything is fact first, faith second, and feeling last of all, and it is striving against the inevitable when we seek to change this order. The way, then, to meet this temptation in reference to consecration is simply to take Godís side in the matter, and to adopt his order by putting faith before feeling. Give yourself to the Lord definitely and fully, according to your present light, asking the Holy Spirit to show you all that is contrary to him, either in your heart or life. If he shows you anything, give it to the Lord immediately, and say in reference to it, ìThy will be done.î If he shows you nothing, then you must believe that there is nothing and must conclude that you have given him all. Then recognize that it must be the fact that, when you give yourself to God, he accepts you, and at once let your faith take hold of this fact. Begin to believe and hold on to it steadfastly that he has taken that which you have surrendered to him. You positively must not wait to feel either that you have given yourself or that God has taken you. You must simply believe it and reckon it to be the case. And if you are steadfast in this reckoning, sooner or later the feeling will come and you will realize that it is indeed a blessed fact that you are wholly the Lordís. If you were to give an estate to a friend, you would have to give it and he would have to receive it by faith. An estate is not a thing that can be picked up and handed over to another. The gift of it and its reception are altogether a transaction by word and on paper, and therefore one of faith. Now if you should give an estate one day to a friend, and then should go away and wonder whether you really had given it, and whether he had actually taken it and considered it his own, and should feel it necessary to go the next day and renew the gift, and if on the third day you should still feel a similar uncertainty about it, and should again go and renew the gift, and on the fourth day go through a like process, and so on, day after day, for months and years, what would your friend think, and what at last would be the condition of your own mind in reference to it? Your friend would certainly begin to doubt whether you ever had intended to give it to him at all, and you yourself would be in such hopeless perplexity about it that you would not know whether the estate was yours, or his, or whose it was. Now, is not this very much the way in which you have been acting toward God in this matter of consecration? You have given yourself to him over and over daily, perhaps for months, but you have invariably come away from your seasons of consecration wondering whether you really have given yourself after all, and whether he has taken you, and because you have not felt any change, you have concluded at last, after many painful tossings, that the thing has not been done. Do you know, dear believer, that this sort of perplexity will last for ever, until you cut it short by faith? You must come to the point of reckoning the matter to be an accomplished and settled thing, and must leave it there before you can possibly expect any change of feeling whatever. The Levitical law of offerings to God settles this as a primary fact, that everything which is given to him becomes, by that very act, something holy, set apart from all other things, something that cannot, without sacrilege, be put to any other uses. Notwithstanding, no devoted thing that a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed. Every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord. Having once given it to the Lord, the devoted thing henceforth was reckoned by all Israel as being the Lord's, and no one dared to stretch forth a hand to retake it. The giver might have made his offering very grudgingly and half-heartedly, but having made it, the matter was taken out of his hands altogether, and the devoted thing by God's own law became most holy unto the Lord. It was not made holy by the state of mind of the giver, but by the holiness of the divine receiver. The altar sanctifies the gift, and an offering once laid upon the altar from that moment belonged to the Lord. I can imagine an offerer, after he had deposited a gift, beginning to search his heart as to his sincerity and honesty in doing it, and coming back to the priest to say that he was afraid, after all, he had not given it rightly, or had not been perfectly sincere in giving it. I feel sure the priest would have silenced him at once, saying, As to how you gave your offering, or what were your motives in giving it, I do not know. The facts are that you did give it, and that it is the Lord's, for every devoted thing is most holy unto him. It is too late to recall the transaction now. And not only the priest, but all Israel would have been aghast at the man who, having once given his offering, should have reached out his hand to take it back. Yet day after day, earnest-hearted Christians, with no thought of the sacrilege they are committing, are guilty in their own experience of a similar act, by giving themselves to the Lord in solemn consecration, and then, through unbelief, taking back that which they have given. Because God is not visibly present to the eye, it is difficult to feel that a transaction with him is real. I suppose that if, when we made our acts of consecration, we could actually see him present with us, we should feel it to be a very real thing, and would realize that we had given our word to him, and could not dare to take it back, no matter how much we might wish to do so. Such a transaction would have to us the binding power that a spoken promise to an earthly friend always has to a man of honor. What we need, therefore, is to see that God's presence is a certain fact always, and that every act of our soul is done before him, and that a word spoken in prayer is as really spoken to him, as if our eyes could see him, and our hands could touch him. Then we shall cease to have such vague conceptions of our relations with him, and shall feel the binding force of every word we say in his presence. I know some will say here, Ah, yes, but if he would only speak to me, and say that he took me when I gave myself to him, I would have no trouble then in believing it. No, of course you would not. But then where would be the room for faith? Sight is not faith, and hearing is not faith, neither is feeling faith. But believing when we can neither see, hear, nor feel is faith, and everywhere the Bible tells us our salvation is to be by faith. Therefore we must believe before we feel, and often against our feelings, if we would honor God by our faith. It is always he that believeth who has the witness, not he that doubteth. But how can we doubt, since by his very command to us, to present ourselves to him a living sacrifice, he has pledged himself to receive us? I cannot conceive of an honorable man asking another to give him a thing which, after all, he was doubtful about taking. Still less can I conceive of a loving parent acting so toward a beloved child. My son, give me thy heart, is a sure warrant for knowing that the moment the heart is given, it will be taken by the one who has commanded the gift. We may, nay we must, feel the utmost confidence then, that when we surrender ourselves to the Lord according to his own command, he does then and there receive us, and from that moment we are his. A real transaction has taken place which cannot be violated without dishonor on our part, and which we know will not be violated by him. In Deuteronomy 26.17-19 we see God's way of working under these circumstances. Thou hast avouched to the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways, and to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and to hearken unto his voice. And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldst keep all his commandments, and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the Lord thy God, as he hath spoken. When we avouch the Lord to be our God, and that we will walk in his ways, and keep his commandments, he avouches us to be his, and that we shall keep all his commandments. And from that moment he takes possession of us. This has always been his principle of working, and it continues to be so. Every devoted thing is most holy to the Lord. This is so plain as not to admit of a question. But if the soul still feels in doubt or difficulty, let me refer you to a New Testament declaration which approaches the subject from a different side, but which settles it, I think, quite as definitely. It is in 1 John 14-15, and reads, And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. And if we know that he hears us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. Is it according to his will that you should be entirely surrendered to him? There can be, of course, but one answer to this, for he has commanded it. Is it not also according to his will that he should work in you to will, and to do of his good pleasure? This question can also have but one answer, for he has declared it to be his purpose. You know, then, that these things are according to his will. Therefore on God's own word you are obliged to know that he hears you. And knowing this much, you are compelled to go farther, and know that you have the petitions that you have desired of him. That you have, I say, not will have, or may have, but have now in actual possession. It is thus that we obtain promises by faith. It is thus that we have access by faith into the grace that is given us in our Lord Jesus Christ. It is thus, and thus only, that we come to know our hearts purified by faith, and are enabled to live by faith, to stand by faith, to walk by faith. I desire to make this subject so plain and practical that no one need have any further difficulty about it, and therefore I will repeat again just what must be the acts of your soul in order to bring you out of this difficulty about consecration. I suppose that you have trusted the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, and know something of what it is to belong to the family of God, and to be made an heir of God through faith in Christ. And now you feel springing up in your heart the longing to be conformed to the image of your Lord. In order for this, you know there must be an entire surrender of yourself to him, that he may work in you all the good pleasure of his will, and you have tried over and over to do it, but hitherto without any apparent success. At this point it is that I desire to help you. What you must do now is to come once more to him in a surrender of your whole self to his will, as complete as you know how to make it. You must ask him to reveal to you by his Spirit any hidden rebellion, and if he reveals nothing, then you must believe that there is nothing, and that the surrender is complete. This must, then, be considered a settled matter. You have wholly yielded yourself to the Lord, and from henceforth you do not in any sense belong to yourself. You must never even so much as listen to a suggestion to the contrary. If the temptation comes to wonder whether you really have completely surrendered yourself, meet it with an assertion that you have. Do not even argue the matter, repel any such idea instantly and with decision. You meant it then, you mean it now, you have really done it. Your emotions may clamor against surrender, but your will must hold firm. It is your purpose God looks at, not your feelings about that purpose, and your purpose or will is therefore the only thing you need to attend to. The surrender, then, having been made, never to be questioned or recalled, the next point is to believe that God takes that which you have surrendered, and to reckon that it is his, not that it will be his at some future time, but that it is now, and that he has begun to work in you to will and to do of his good pleasure. And here you must rest. There is nothing more for you to do, except to be henceforth an obedient child. For you are the Lord's now, absolutely and entirely in his hands, and he has undertaken the whole care and management and forming of you, and will, according to his word, work in you that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ. But you must hold steadily here. If you begin to question your surrender, or God's acceptance of it, then your wavering faith will produce a wavering experience, and he cannot work in you to do his will. But while you trust, he works, and the result of his working always is to change you into the image of Christ, from glory to glory, by his mighty Spirit. Do you then, now at this moment, surrender yourself wholly to him? You answer, Yes. Then, my dear friend, begin at once to reckon that you are his, that he has taken you, and that he is working in you to will and to do of his good pleasure. And keep on reckoning this. You will find it a great help to put your reckoning into words, and say over and over to yourself and to God, Lord, I am thine, I do yield myself entirely to thee, and I believe that thou dost take me. I leave myself with thee. Work in me all the good pleasure of thy will, and I will only lie still in thy hands and trust thee. Make this a daily, definite act of your will, and many times a day recur to it as being your continual attitude before the Lord. Confess it to yourself, confess it to your God, confess it to your friends. Avouch the Lord to be your God continually and unwaveringly, and declare your purpose of walking in his ways and keeping his statutes. And sooner or later you will find in practical experience that he has avouched you to be one of his peculiar people, and will enable you to keep all his commandments, and that you are being made into an holy people unto the Lord as he has spoken. For thou art making me, I thank thee, sire. What thou hast done and doest thou knowest well. And I will help thee gently in thy fire, I will lie burning. On thy potter's wheel I will whirl patient, though my brain should reel. Thy grace shall be enough my grief to quell, and growing strength perfect through weakness dire.