It all started here for me this morning, reading the words of Joshua 3:5 Joshua told the people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you."
Consecrate -To declare or set apart as sacred; purify and set apart to a purpose. Here, the people were told to, forgive the vernacular, clean up their act and set themselves apart from the world and its values because God had something for them to do, something amazing.
This set me to thinking, about the idea of consecration and what that means to us and whether the New Testament say anything related to this. So, I looked up that word and related words and found out that the three primary writers of the New Testament, John, Paul and Peter had plenty to say about the subject, though they may not have used the same words.
John writes in John 14:23 these words: Jesus answered, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him.
The believer, the one who says he or she loves God will be obedient to God's words or commands. That means that when the world's values and God's values conflict, the one who loves God will choose obedience to God's words, will freely separate themselves from the world.
And in John 15:4, John records more of Christ's words: Remain in me and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.
Consecration has the sense of purifying from and separating to. Here Christ says separate yourself from other influences and remain in me. Consider this word picture; remain in me as a branch illustrates that we are to purify ourselves from all other sources of nourishment. We are to draw sustenance and power from Christ alone, resisting all peer and worldly pressure to be conformed to anything other than Christ.
Paul gives us a word picture of consecration in I Cor. 7:34: An unmarried woman or a virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy both in body and spirit.
This passage goes on to talk about how the married woman is consumed with pleasing her husband. But I was struck with this word picture of consecration - the unmarried woman who purifies herself from any unholiness, who seeks to please God in both her body, her physical relationships and, as well as her spirit, that inner life - her relationship with God. She lives a consecrated life.
In I Cor. 11:1 Paul holds himself as a role model talking about his own consecration: Be imitators of me even as I also am of Christ.
The one who is consecrated or set apart to the holy life lives according to the model Christ gave us. Remember, Scripture tells us he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. So we can look at the lives first of Christ, and then of Paul, not Saul, to learn what a consecrated life looks like.
In Ephesians, Eph. 1:4 for He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight, Paul gives us the purpose for our consecration or set "apartness," we are set apart to be holy and blameless in his sight. That's the standard for consecration God's sight, his point of view, not what looks good from our earthly perspective.
Finally Peter addresses the subject in I Peter 1:15, " but as the One who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct, (16) for it is written, "Be holy for I am holy."
Here the standard and extent of our consecration is addressed. The standard for our purity is God; we are called (or drawn to him in salvation) to be holy as He is holy, and in all our conduct. There is no aspect of our life that is exempt from the call to consecration: our humor, our work, our entertainment, our dress, our company (the company we keep - our friends), and I am sure the list could go on and on.
We are to separate ourselves from any unholy action or thought or influence. We must remain in this world, but not be influenced by this world.
So, as I live this day, I must rehearse, as many times as it takes, that this day is my offering to God. It is, and I am, consecrated or set apart to holiness. And when I get off that road, I must take immediate steps to "clean up my act" as Joshua warned those people, so God can do amazing things. And what a thought that is - that God might do an amazing thing through me and through you.
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