consecration

What Is Preventing You From Living a Set-Apart Life?

September 19, 2017 By Carol Whitaker 2 Comments

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Recently, my daughter was moved from her third grade class to a new class. The school had more third graders than they anticipated, so not even a few weeks into the school year, they are getting a new teacher and placing students in a new class.

This is very good news in many ways because my daughter will have a smaller learning environment, more one-on-one attention from her teacher, and less noise and chaos (as she was experiencing in her much bigger class). However, my daughter is sad about the move because she has to leave behind the comfort of her old classroom and her friends. Her best friend and the other girls she has befriended are not coming with her on the move.

The reason she was selected for the move was because of her high test scores — so while we can celebrate that her scores are so high, she is not excited because she feels like this move is a punishment.

Spiritually, sometimes we may feel like this as well. It’s exciting to be chosen by God for our specific calling — to be set apart to do His purposes, but the reality of the life we live as Christians is that we have to give up some things in order to be live a consecrated life. When we leave behind friends that we wanted to keep or lifestyle choices that we don’t really want to give up, those decisions can be painful.

However, if we choose not to let go of what God asks of us, these things we hold onto can become obstacles to following God’s will and letting ourselves be set apart for His purposes.

Consecration: A Life Set Apart

Before we continue on in our conversation, it’s important to understand what consecration is. According to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, consecration is “the devoting or setting apart of anything to the worship of God.” The Bible tells us that we are “living sacrifices” (Romans 12:1) and the “temple of God” (1 Corinthians 3:16, 17). Offering ourselves to God and living lives in His holy service is pleasing worship to him. In 1 Peter 2:9-12, we see our position as members of one body:

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praise of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, abut now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

This passage informs us that as believers we are a “chosen people, a royal priesthood” (v. 9). However, this means we are “foreigners and exiles” in this world, and we have to live differently than unbelievers and “abstain from sinful desires” (v. 11). While we can’t do anything to add to Jesus’ work on the cross in terms of our salvation, living a life that pleases and honors Him is a continual choice we make.

What it Means To Live a Consecrated Life

In The Spirit-Filled Life on Biblehub.com, John MacNeil stresses that consecration involves surrender, a transfer of ownership, and enthroning Christ. All of these points are interrelated, but what he means by “surrender” is that after conversion we give God our bodies, too, not just our souls. He quotes Dr. Chalmers as saying, “In conversion, God gives to me, but in consecration I give to God.”

By “transfer of ownership” he advocates that we live our lives ever aware of the fact that we have been purchased. MacNeil cites 1 Corinthians 19, 20 as support for this idea, which says, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Consecration means that we continually remember that we belong to God and that our lives no longer are ours to do with as we please.

Additionally, when MacNeil says that we need to “enthrone Christ” in our life, he rightly advocates the idea that a consecrated life involves more than just conversion. At conversion, we invite Christ in the throne room, but to sanctify ourselves (in the sense of the New Testament usage) means to set apart ourselves so we put Christ on the throne and glorify Him in all we do.

However, as I previously mentioned, obstacles exist that can stand in the way of living out a life that is set apart for God. We must identify and remove these hindrances so we can live the Christian life we were called to live.

Obstacles That Stand in the Way of a Consecrated Life

1. Unbelief.

When many people hear the word “unbelief,” they think of unbelief in God’s existence. While it can mean that, unbelief is not believing in the truths we encounter in God’s Word or the promises of God. We can be a Christian and still struggle with unbelief.

In our spiritual walk, God continually grows and refines us as we walk with Him. However, at times we will come across truths in His Word that don’t sit right with us for whatever reason. We resist them because they go against our common sense or what we were taught when were young. Or they may urge us to do something that we don’t think we want to do or think we can do. In those moments, we have a choice to take the path of belief or the path of unbelief.

The famous evangelist Billy Graham had an experience in his Christian walk where he felt unsure about some of the truths he encountered in God’s Word. In fact, another prominent Christian pastor urged him not to take everything in the Bible as truth. However, Billy Graham prayed about it and came to this conclusion: By faith, he would accept everything in the Bible as truth even when he didn’t understand.

We must do the same. If we choose to walk our own way, we choose not to walk in God’s benefits and blessings that come from our obedience. We will get stagnant in our walk. It is impossible to please God without faith, and we must determine to stake our lives on the truth of the Bible whether it always sits right with us or not.

God invites our questions. His Word says that any who need wisdom should ask (James 1:5). It’s OK to wrestle and work out things — but not to walk away from God’s truth and choose our own.

2. Ignorance.

While unbelief is coming across a truth and not accepting it, ignorance is simply not knowing the truths of God.

I am a former English teacher. I love to delve into the Bible and analyze the meanings of passages and look up commentary. The Word of God is an endless source of wisdom for me. However, even if I study every second of every day for the rest of my life, I will never know every truth there is to know. There are some things that I will still not understand. However, even though I will never know everything, I need to make it a priority to learn every day about God. I need to carve out time with Him and open myself up to His truth. The Bible says that people die for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6).

God honors our feeble steps of faith. When we are young in the faith, if we make attempts to learn about God and read His Word, the Holy Spirit helps to fill in the gaps. There have been times when the Holy Spirit counseled me from within on what to do in a particular situation before I had ever read the right passages. However, we need to make sure that we are learning continually from His Word and opening ourselves to hear from Him. When we don’t know the truths of God, we won’t be able to withstand the enemy’s attack or be prepared for the circumstances that come our way.

God doesn’t expect us to know or understand everything, but the Bible is clear that the wise learn and adhere to the commands of God. Proverbs 6:20-22 tells us this:

My son, keep your father’s command and do not forsake you mother’s teaching. Bind them always on your heart; fasten them around you neck. When you walk, they will guide you; when you sleep, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you.

Ignorance can prevent us from knowing how to live our lives in in a God-honoring manner. In addition, if we aren’t opening ourselves up to learn from God and hear from Him daily, this can be a major obstacle in our spiritual life.

3. Fear.

Lastly, I don’t know about you, but fear is a struggle for me. As a recovering people-pleaser, I don’t want to disappoint the people around me. I generally don’t choose actions that will make me stand out or look different because I fear the negative reactions or rejection of others. However, the Bible tells us that instead of fearing man and his reaction to us, we need to concern ourselves only with God’s view of us and instead fear God. Matthew 10:28 says, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Similarly, Paul in Galatians 1:10 says, “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Proverbs 29:25 says this: “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.”

Rather than look at obedience as drudgery, we can view it in a different light entirely. The Bible tells us that giving ourselves to the work of God is a privilege. In Through My Eyes, by Tim Tebow, he talks about how he looks for opportunities to witness to others. In fact, he likes to be different and stand out. He defines being the same as everyone else as “average” and “mediocre.” He says this: “As I got older and heard kids talking about wanting to ‘fit in,’ or wanting to be ‘normal,’ I never quite understood why they felt that way. What’s the point of being ‘normal’? That sounds average to me, and I never felt like I was created to be average.”

I love his explanation and definition of being different. It inspires me to embrace obedience and the “peculiarity” we have as believers — viewing it as a special undertaking, not something we are forced to do out of obligation. To truly be vessels that God can use, we must not allow our fear to prevent us from stepping out and doing the will of God.

Consecration: Giving Back to God

Living a consecrated life means choosing to give back to God because of what He has done for us. Consecration means acknowledging that we belong to God, and we must allow Him to choose to do with us as He wants. However, as Rick Warren says in The Purpose-Driven Life, sometimes the “living sacrifice” likes to crawl off the altar. In other words, sometimes we don’t want to do what God would have us do.

However, in those moments we must remember that God knows what is best for our good and the good of others. He is making out of us a masterpiece to put His glory on display — and we must let Him do as He likes and trust Him even when it doesn’t make sense or He points us in a way that we don’t want to go.

Once, I had a choir director that gave me a part for a musical that I didn’t even try out for. I was getting back into music and tried out for a solo. He talked with me and selected instead a shorter duet over the background of a children’s choir. While the part wasn’t one I would have picked for myself, I realized that it was the perfect part for me. I am not sure I could have made in one piece through the longer solo as I was dealing with a lot of nerves getting back on the stage again — and the audience we had was a couple thousand. His judgment was better than mine, and he knew what was best in that situation.

Similarly, God doesn’t always pick for us the “part” we would pick for ourselves. Sometimes with our limited perspective, it’s hard to see what He’s doing or feel like His plan for us makes sense. If we surrender, however, as Charles Stanley notes in The Blessings of Brokenness, we will live a life that is much better and more fulfilling than we could have ever envisioned or orchestrated for ourselves.

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

Set Apart for God’s Special Purpose

September 16, 2017 By Stacey Crayton 1 Comment

“In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for special purposes and some for common use. Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work” (2 Timothy 2:20-21).

Vessels are meant to be used. Vessels are empty (“What Is a Vessel?”). As vessels of God, we don’t have to worry whether we have anything to put in the cup; we only need concern ourselves with what kind of cup we will be; God will do the infilling. We have a choice in this faith of ours (“What Is a Vessel?”). We can be rich or poor. We can enter heaven “like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames,” or we can receive a warm welcome into “eternal dwellings” (1 Corinthians 3:15 NLT; Luke 16:9). We can bring great riches into our eternal account, or — as harsh as it sounds — everything we did on earth can be burned in God’s fire (1 Corinthians 3:13-15).

As emphasized by Reverend Norman Holmes in “Vessels of Honor,” we make those choices now — will we be spiritually rich, fancy vessels of gold and silver, experiencing great supernatural experiences and mind-blowing visitations, or will we be like a coffee mug of the dollar store variety? God wants us to choose the precious. As we set ourselves apart for His purposes, He will Himself make us into that vessel He can use for special purposes — not a vessel that is left on the shelf and rarely used.

Consecration: Living Set-Apart Lives for Him

The word consecrate, according to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, means to “set apart.” In a slightly different sense of the word, sanctification means to set apart as different but also carries the denotation of a cleansing occurring. If God calls you to set you apart, you are going to get a bath! For this reason, the two terms have come to be almost interchangeable over the years — not to be confused with justification, the just-as-if-I-had-never-sinned word. Justified is what Jesus did for us on the cross, consecration is what do out of gratitude for the fact, and sanctification is the ongoing outworking of the cross’s cleansing.

As a sidebar, as John MacNeil points out in The Spirit-Filled Life on Biblehub.com, it’s interesting to note Jesus said that He “sanctified Himself” (John 17:19). Obviously, He didn’t have to cleanse Himself. That sense of the word sanctified or consecrated — according to Ellicott’s Commentary — is thought of as He set Himself apart for “the work which was immediately before [Jesus] — the offering [up of] Himself.” It’s a good idea to be thinking of the work before us — God wants to use us!

So, consecration means we separate ourselves to God by giving ourselves back to Him in surrender. However, as MacNeil observes, in that surrender, we have choices. Will it be a total surrender, or will we maintain veto power? Will it be complete or will we reserve the right to indulge in “small” sins like venting our anger on social media? Will we have doors in our hearts that say “Do not enter” to God? Or will we allow Him to turn the light on in every area?

The Word says, “Deep calls to deep” (Psalm 42:7). The deeper we allow God to go — “Lord, instead of venting here, I will just tell you right now I don’t like this person, but I’ll make it between You and me. You see all,” the deeper His river can flow through us to the depths of others (MacNeil).

If we seek anointing, we have to let it go deep in ourselves first. In America we can be tempted to insulate our lives from suffering as so many entertainments are available to us here that can easily placate our souls, but God invites us to suffer in our flesh by allowing it to be crucified with Him, so He can flow through us into deep places to others. Like Jesus who “poured out His soul unto death,” if we pour out our souls in such a way, we will indeed know His anointing is flowing through us (Isaiah 53:12, AKJV).

Choosing to Be a Vessel God Can Use

As we choose what type of vessel we are going to be — silver and gold, or wood or clay — we must choose to leave some things behind. Like Jeremiah, we have to “extract the precious from the worthless” (Jeremiah 15:19, NASB).

As we choose what type of vessel we are going to be, we must choose to leave some things behind.

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Achan, a character in the Old Testament, chose to sneakily keep some spoils of war hidden in his tent. The result was all Israel suffered from his sin at the battle of Ai, where God allowed a defeat to the enemy’s forces. It’s not clear exactly what Achan stole from Jericho when it fell, but the Hebrew renders it “devoted things.” These devoted things were that which the Lord had said were to be destroyed — devoted to destruction. Nonetheless, Achan piled up a heap of the forbidden things in his tent. It wound up costing him his life.

Have we held on to that which God has devoted to “destruction”? If we hold on to sin, we are harboring a heap of trouble in our “tent.” Sexual sin, especially, as well as pride and the fear of man are “gateway sins” that open the door to other sins. We must allow the Holy Spirit to set us apart from who we used to be and the things we used to desire before the Lord can give us that ministry He so longs to.

As we allow God to take away our old self-image, our consecration results in purification. Otherwise, instead of being a precious vessel God can use, we are not only not that, we are — along with our hidden sins — like a rusty, old tin can. Instead of honor, we will, like Achan, experience devastation in areas God had never intended. This does not mean we won’t go to heaven, but it may mean huge areas of our lives will be subject to, well, destruction (1 Corinthians 3:15). Paul says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7, NASB). Consecration and purification go hand-in-hand.

Part of separating oneself for God’s special purposes involves allowing God to bring boundaries into certain relationships, especially ones with unbelievers. Paul writes, “Therefore, come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you” (2 Corinthians 6:17).

I remember as a new hire at a workplace when a dear friend was throwing a party — one I very much planned to attend. Suddenly, the Holy Spirit crashed into my world and said, “Don’t go.” I was shocked! Didn’t the Lord realize I had already RSVP’d — that a last-minute cancellation wouldn’t be a good “witness”? Besides, everyone who was anyone was going to attend — namely, those I perceived that could solidify my standing at work.

Though I really wanted to go, I slowly began to concede to God’s plan. Just to show you what a coward I was, I did not have the guts to tell my friend I wasn’t coming, so, I was forced to write a note and deliver it. Soon, I sensed the presence of God on my life in a new way, but first I had to “die” to expectations to be a certain way. Remember the Bible says, “They are surprised that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of wild living, and they slander you” (1 Peter 4:4, HCSB). God began to deliver me from the fear of man. I was on the path to being the special, consecrated vessel I was created to become, and I eventually enjoyed becoming the leader of a blessed Bible study there.

Useful for God’s Kingdom Work

We can fit into American culture or fit into the culture of the kingdom of God. Paul writes, “For no one can lay a foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, his workmanship will be evident, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will prove the quality of each man’s work” (1 Corinthians 3:11-14). This is not something to fear but to anticipate. If we’re going to do this thing, we might as well do it right, surrender, step out in faith way beyond our ability to save ourselves, let Him set us apart, and see what God might do.

We live in times that demand our greatest efforts to draw near to God’s throne as people are paralyzed with fear and anxiety; they are wrestling with eternal questions now as never before. Ironically, the nightly news that can make us despair — with ISIS attacks, the sharp political divide in America, growing racial tension, threats of international war and natural disasters — has forced the discussion of religion back into people’s minds. The harvest is ripe as never before. We must be ready for the Master’s use in such a time as this.

As Joshua said to the Israelites before crossing the Jordan, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow, the Lord will do amazing things among you” (Joshua 3:5). It’s time to allow God to do the sometimes painful, but always wonderful — work He wants to do in us. Choose wisely today to be the precious, beautiful silver and gold vessel God wants you to be, and you will not only shine brightly now, you will reap a great reward.

*Updated from the original version September 30, 2017

Stacey Crayton

Stacey Crayton lives in Canton, Georgia, with her husband and feline despot, Gideon. Stacey's name means "resurrection," and it also is a story of her life -- many "deaths" in different areas that seem to keep returning as empowering events. She is a former contributing editor to "Living Water Journal" and enjoys hiking, biking, painting in oils, acrylics -- and recently, watercolors -- and loves nothing more than to wake up watching tree shadows flicker on the top of her tent. A teacher, Stacey holds a master's in Teaching English as a Second Language and is learning to praise God even in a current season of being in "God's waiting room." Her dream is to hold prophetic and deliverance conferences to see God's people get set free around the globe. Until then, she keeps practicing on herself, her family, and whoever will listen to her ministry in the "highways and byways." Stacey is a bold believer who specializes in witnessing for the kingdom of God.