True consecration to Christ simplifies life, for it leaves the management to HIM. It also unifies life, for it blends all our motives and activities in on all-controlling aim to please HIM. It purifies life, for it expels all that is disapproved by HIM. It amplifies life, for it gives the divine will spacious fulfillment through us to uplift HIM. And it glorifies life, for it makes us a blessing to others and a praise to HIM.Our entire consecration is that which our Lord Himself desires for us above all else - far more than our service, our money, our time, or even our prayers...There can be no substitute for this, simply because there is no equivalent. How incalculably important, also is our consecration to Christ when we think of the unsaved all around us, and of the low spiritual average among believers today, and of our Lord's nearing return!
Are not all Christians thus consecrated? Not; far from it. But to they not all desire it? Yes, I think they all do. whey then are so few actually consecrated? It is because consecration, although in one sense a simple "handing over" followed by a simple "hands off", is the hardest of all capitulations to the elf-centered ego in us. To give up this or that or the other sin is comparatively tolerable, but to give up self-management, self-motives, grudges, plans, and self-everything, is utterly unbearable to our hereditary Adam-nature, which is supported in its resistance by Satan and the world, and perhaps unintentionally by other Christians.
Oh, it is a super crisis of the soul, to give up your claim to every bit of merit, your desires for the present, and if necessary your plans for the future, your first claim on every penny you possess, your own ideas, your everything - not just for a year or a decade, but for ever! One of the most powerful deterrents is our fear of being misunderstood by loved ones, and the loneliness which may be thus occasioned. There is only one thing which can make this complete hand-over easy. It is to have such a trustful, grateful, adoring love for Jesus that all else seems "dross" compared with His dearness and excellency...It is the supreme test of our love.
From: Awake My Heart, a daily devotional book by J. Sidlow Baxter.
