The Principles of Prayer V

 Those more poetically inclined will insist that we’re all standing on a spider web between light and darkness, each pulling at us, trying to draw us closer, but even so, you’re still facing toward one or the other. If you’re facing toward the light, the likelihood of drawing closer to it is greater by far than if your back is turned to it. We make the choice every day to either turn our face toward the light or turn our backs on it.

If the desire of our heart is to consecrate ourselves unto God, we will take the requisite steps to do so. Consecration is personal and intimate. It’s not something achieved corporately but individually. God sanctifies the consecrated, but man chooses to consecrate himself.

When God spoke to the people of Israel, He made this abundantly clear, yet, as is always the case, there will always be those who attempt to circumvent scripture for the sake of an easier, illusory option.

Leviticus 20:7-8, “Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. And you shall keep My statutes, and perform them: I am the Lord who sanctifies you.”

No man possesses the wherewithal to consecrate another. We are individually accountable before God to set our minds and hearts to the pursuit of complete dedication to His will. God commanded that we consecrate ourselves and be holy, but obedience to His command is voluntary on our part. Voluntary, but not optional. We can’t confuse the two. If you desire all that God has set aside for those who belong to Him, then you must consecrate yourself unto Him, becoming His, in word and deed. I can’t force anyone into consecrating themselves against their will. All I can do is present what God has commanded, and they must choose to accept or reject His word.

John 7:17, “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority.”

Not only is one setting oneself apart or consecrating oneself voluntary, but it is also active. It’s not a one-and-done prospect but a lifelong, ongoing pursuit. You were purchased with a price. Not just some of you, but all of you. Jesus bought the whole house. Not just the attic, or the basement, or the knitting room no one ever uses, but all of it, every stud, every beam, every room, door, window, knob, and floorboard, and since it belongs to Him entirely, outright, with no mortgage, lien, or debt, He is within His right to do with it as He wills.

When we are consecrated to God, we belong to Him and to no other. Not to ourselves, not to our wives, not to our husbands, children, community, nation, or political party. He is first, always in all things, and His word is supreme over our own desires, wants, feelings, or opinions.

Only then does God begin the work that man cannot do of his own volition, which is the process of sanctification. If we have no desire to consecrate ourselves to God, there can be no viable expectation of being sanctified by Him. Consecration and sanctification may be similar in definition, but they are worlds apart in who initiates the process.

I cannot sanctify myself, nor can you. My righteousness is as filthy rags before Him, so unless His righteousness is imputed to me through His Son Jesus, and unless He sanctifies me by His word, I remain clothed in the filthy rags, rather than His righteousness.

True consecration is a zero-sum prospect, meaning there is nothing we can hold back, keep to ourselves, shelter, or protect, and still conclude that we’ve consecrated ourselves unto God. All of it must be surrendered. All of it must be laid at the foot of the cross, whether our pride, our egotism, our will, our time, our flesh, or our resources. There is no area of our heart that is off limits to God if we desire to consecrate ourselves to Him.

For some, it’s easy not to be a drunkard because they never drank. For others, it’s easy to forfeit greed or avarice because they never took root in their hearts to begin with. However, everyone has that something that they attempt to play keep away with God over, trying to explain to Him why they should be able to retain it, cling to it, and court it, while still claiming to have consecrated themselves.

If He is Lord of your life, then it’s all of your life. There must be nothing that is on equal footing with Him as far as desire goes, nor should anything hold prominence over His will.

Some twenty years ago, the song I Give You My Heart was all the rage in many churches. Regardless of denomination, you were bound to hear it at some point during the service. The lyrics describe consecration, but singing it and doing it are two different matters entirely. My desire is to honor you, with all my heart I worship You, with all I have within me I give You praise. Lord, I give you my heart, I give you my soul, I live for You alone! Oh, if it were so, then today’s church would look very different from the hollow husk it has become.

Singing it, speaking it, thinking it, requires no commitment or exertion on our part. Doing it, and surrendering all to Him, will feel as though you’re being raked over hot coals while a Middle Eastern mustachioed man is sprinkling liberal amounts of salt off his elbow onto your open wound. The true battle isn’t surrendering the things you were never partial to, but surrendering that one thing that is in direct competition with God for the throne of your heart.

Identify that one thing that is hindering you from fully consecrating yourself to God, that acts as a barrier to complete obedience, and, through gritted teeth, excise it from your heart as though it were a tumor. The removal process will not feel good, but once it’s done, you will feel the presence of God as never before because now, finally, He rules and reigns supreme in your heart, and the sanctification process can commence.

Just because something is simple in principle, it doesn’t mean it will be easy, but because we know it’s necessary to reach our full potential in God, we must nevertheless endeavor to follow through and do it, hard as it may seem at the time.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Posted on 16 April 2025 | 10:56 am