CONSECRATION

~ Take All The Keys, Lord

 Dr. F. B. Meyer came to a crucial, transitional time in his ministry. He sat dejectedly in his study. “My ministry is unfruitful, and I lack spiritual power,” he said to himself.

 Suddenly Christ seemed to stand beside him. “Let me have the keys to your life,” Christ said. The experience was so realistic that he reached into his pocket and took out a bunch of keys! “Are all the keys here?” “Yes, Lord, all except the key to one small room in my life.” Christ said: “If you cannot trust me in all rooms of your life, I cannot accept any of the keys.”

 Dr. Meyer was so overwhelmed with the feeling that Christ was moving out of his life because he was excluding Him from one interest in his life that he cried out, “Come back, Lord, and take the keys to all the rooms of my life!”

—Walter B. Knight

~ No Access To Devil

 A. T. Pierson gives the following illustration: Suppose you had a thousand-acre farm and someone offered to buy it. You agree to sell the land except for one acre right in the center which you want to keep for yourself. Did you know that in some areas the law would allow you to have access to that one lone spot? And that you would have the right to build a road across the surrounding property in order to get to it?

 So it is with us as Christians if we make less than 100-percent surrender to God. We can be sure that the devil will take advantage of any inroad to reach that uncommitted area of our lives.

~ Livingstone’s Last Birthday

 When Stanley found Livingstone, the great missionary who spent thirty years in darkest Africa, he wanted him to come back to England with him, but Livingstone refused to go. Two days later he wrote in his diary: “March 19, my birthday. My Jesus, my King, my Life, my all, I again dedicate my whole self to Thee. Accept me, and grant, O gracious Father, that ere the year is gone I may finish my work. In Jesus’ name I ask it. Amen.” A year later his servants found him on his knees dead.

—Tom M. Olson

~Anywhere Except Chicago

 “When I was a youth, I used to say, “I’ll go wherever the Lord calls me, but not to Chicago,”“ said Dr. George L. Robinson, who for forty-one years was professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago! “McCormick wrote and wired me, wanting me to come,” reminisced the nonagenarian. “After two-and-one-half years, I went. There were no strings attached to my going where God wanted me to go, and I’ve been thankful ever since!”

~ Consecration Of Jonathan Edwards

 I claim no right to myself—no right to this understanding, this will, these affections that are in me; neither do I have any right to this body or its members—no right to this tongue, to these hands, feet, ears, or eyes.

 I have given myself clear away and not retained anything of my own. I have been to God this morning and told Him I have given myself wholly to Him. I have given every power, so that for the future I claim no right to myself in any respect. I have expressly promised Him, for by His grace I will not fail. I take Him as my whole portion and felicity, looking upon nothing else as any part of my happiness. His law is the constant rule of my obedience.

 I will fight with all my might against the world, the flesh, and the devil to the end of my life. I will adhere to the faith of the Gospel, however hazardous and difficult the profession and practice of it may be.

 I receive the blessed Spirit as my Teacher, Sanctifier, and only Comforter, and cherish all admonitions to enlighten, purify, confirm, comfort, and assist me. This I have done.

 I pray God, for the sake of others, to look upon this as a self-dedication, and receive me as His own. Henceforth, I am not to act in any respect as my own. I shall act as my own if I ever make use of any of my powers to do anything that is not to the glory of God, or to fail to make the glorifying of Him my whole and entire business.

 If I murmur in the least at afflictions; if I am in any way uncharitable; if I revenge my own case; if I do anything purely to please myself, or omit anything because it is a great denial; if I trust to myself; if I take any praise for any good which Christ does by me; or if I am in any way proud, I shall act as my own and not God’s. I purpose to be absolutely His.

—Jonathan Edwards

~Florence Nightingale At 30

 Florence Nightingale at thirty wrote in her diary, “I am thirty years of age, the age at which Christ began His mission. Now no more childish things, no more vain things. Now, Lord, let me think only of Thy will.” Years later, near the end of her illustrious, heroic life she was asked for her life’s secret, and she replied, “Well, I can only give one explanation. That is, I have kept nothing back from God.”

—Paul Rees

~ Dr. Howard Kelly At Graduation

 On the night of his graduation from medical college, Dr. Howard A. Kelly, world-famed surgeon and gynecologist, wrote in his diary: “I dedicate myself, my time, my capabilities, my ambition, everything to Him. Blessed Lord, sanctify me to Thy uses. Give me no worldly success which may not lead me nearer to my Saviour!”

—Orville S. Walter

~ A Swiss Hermit

 Pleaded Nicholas of Flue, Swiss holy hermit, “O Lord, take from me what keeps me from Thee; give me what brings me to Thee; and take myself and give me Thyself!”

~Jim Elliot’s Diary

 In a diary entry, Jim Elliot, the Auca Indian martyr, wrote, “God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life, that I may burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like You, Lord Jesus.”

—The Bible Friend

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