Lunch: Consecrate.

by Hillary Mortensen

As I think on what it means, I am overcome with a desire to live a life that is consecrated—dedicated, set apart, made holy, perfected, devoted, separated, made new, prepared—for God. Then, I consider how I'm not at that place. And that realization brings with it a deep sadness, but I have to wonder: Am I sad because I haven't been at that place, because I'm not willing to consecrate every area of my life to get there, or because I am already grieving the loss of letting go of the things that stand in the way? Or is it all three?

----------------

I spent this last weekend on a church retreat with “Consecrate” as the theme. Over the course of the weekend, I received a challenge to go “all in,” giving everything over to God, setting it all apart for Him. I sense God challenging me to surrender to Him a number of things, including work/career, a relationship, ideals of the world (like success) that I have unfortunately embraced, and my life as a whole.

Romans 12:1-2 was the theme passage. I particularly like this paraphrase from The Message:

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

I began to consider how we can consecrate ourselves in regard to Adam and his condition. As the passage above describes, we can place ourselves—our lives, our bodies, our members—before God. We can embrace what God has done in and through all of us in this situation. We can avoid what the world might have us think, such as dependence on medicine or a spirit of defeat and hopelessness. We must fix our attention on God and allow Him to change us. If God would have us respond, as we are doing now in prayer and fasting, respond. Allowing a transformation of thought and mind allows us to discern the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. This, friends, is our “living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [our] spiritual worship.” (See Romans 12:1-2, ESV)

Let us pray that we would present ourselves, our entire beings, before God. Ask him to reshape and rewire our thinking, that we would be transformed and develop the mind of Christ. Thank God for the work He has already done in growing us in maturity. Commit your life to the Lord as an act of worship.