Christian's Secret of a Happy Life - Chapter 5 Chapter 5
It is very important that Christians should not be ignorant of the devices ofthe enemy; for he stands ready to oppose every onward step of the soul'sprogress. And especially is he busy when he sees a believer awakened to ahunger and thirst after righteousness, and seeking to reach out to apprehendall the fulness that is in the Lord Jesus Christ for him.
DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING CONSECRATION One of the first difficulties he throws inthe way of such a one is concerning consecration. The seeker after holiness istold that he must consecrate himself; and he endeavors to do so. But at once hemeets with a difficulty. He has done it, as he thinks, and yet does not feeldifferently from before; nothing seems changed, as he has been led to expect itwould be, and he is completely baffled, and asks the question almostdespairingly, "How am I to know when I am consecrated?"
The one grand temptation which has met such asoul at this juncture is the temptation which never fails to assert itself onevery possible occasion, and generally with marked success, and that is inreference to feeling. The soul cannot believe it is consecrated until it feelsthat it is; and because it does not feel that God has taken it in hand, itcannot believe that He has. As usual, it puts feeling first and faith second.Now, God's invariable rule is faith first and feeling second, in everything;and it is striving against the inevitable when we seek to make it different.
The way to meet this temptation, then, inreference to consecration, is simply to take God's side in the matter, and toput faith before feeling. Give yourself to the Lord definitely and fully,according to your present light, asking the Holy Spirit to show you all that iscontrary to God, either in your heart or life. If He shows you anything, giveit to the Lord immediately, and say in reference to it, "Thy will be done." IfHe shows you nothing, then you must believe that there is nothing, and mustconclude that you have given Him all. Then you must believe that He takes you.You positively must not wait to feel either that you have given yourself orthat He has taken you. You must simply believe it, and reckon it to be thecase.
If you were to give an estate to a friend, youwould have to give it, and he would have to receive it by faith. An estate isnot a thing that can be picked up and handed over to another; the gift of itand its reception are altogether a mental transaction and therefore one offaith. Now, if you should give an estate one day to a friend, and then shouldgo away and wonder whether you really had given it, and whether he had actuallytaken it and considered it his own, and should feel it necessary to go the nextday and renew the gift; and if on the third day you should still feel a similaruncertainty about it, and should again go and renew the gift, and on the fourthday go through a like process, and so on, day after day for months and years,what would your friend think, and what at last would be the condition of yourown mind in reference to it? Your friend certainly would begin to doubt whetheryou ever had intended to give it to him at all; and you yourself would be insuch hopeless perplexity about it , that you would not know whether the estatewas yours, or his, or whose it was.
Now, is not this very much the way in which youhave been acting towards God in this matter of consecration? You have givenyourself to Him over and over daily, perhaps for months, but you haveinvariably come away from your seasons of consecration wondering whether youreally have given yourself after all, and whether He has taken you; and becauseyou have not felt any differently, you have concluded at last, after manypainful tossings, that the thing has not been done. Do you know, dear believer,that this sort of perplexity will last forever, unless you cut it short byfaith? You must come to the point of reckoning the matter to be an accomplishedand settled thing, and leaving it there, before you can possibly expect anychange of feeling what ever.
The very law of offerings to the Lord settlesthis as a primary fact, that everything which is given to Him becomes by thatvery act something holy, set apart from all other things, and cannot withoutsacrilege be put to any other uses. "Notwithstanding, no devoted thing that aman shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, andof the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thingis most holy unto the Lord." Having once given it to the Lord, the devotedthing henceforth was reckoned by all Israel as being the Lord's, and no onedared to stretch forth a hand to retake it. The giver might have made hisoffering very grudgingly and half-heartedly, but having made it, the matter wastaken out of his hands altogether, and the devoted thing by God's own lawbecame "most holy unto the Lord."
It was not the intention of the giver that madeit holy, but the holiness of the receiver. "The altar sanctifies the gift." Andan offering once laid upon the altar, from that moment belonged to the Lord. Ican imagine an offerer who had deposited a gift, beginning to search his heartas to his sincerity and honesty in doing it, and coming back to the priest tosay that he was afraid after all he had not given it right, or had not beenperfectly sincere in giving it. I feel sure that the priest would have silencedhim at once with saying, "As to how you gave your offering, or what were yourmotives in giving it, I do not know. The facts are that you did give it, andthat it is the Lord's, for every devoted thing is most holy unto Him. It is toolate to recall the transaction now." And not only the priest but all Israelwould have been aghast at the man who, having once given his offering, shouldhave reached out his hand to take it back. And yet, day after day,earnest-hearted Christians, who would have shuddered at such an act ofsacrilege on the part of a Jew, are guilty in their own experience of a similaract, by giving themselves to the Lord in solemn consecration, and then throughunbelief taking back that which they have given.
Because God is not visibly present to the eye, itis difficult to feel that a transaction with Him is real. I suppose if, when wemade our acts of consecration, we could actually see Him present with us, weshould feel it to be a very real thing, and would realize that we had given ourword to Him and could not dare to take it back, no matter how much we mightwish to do so. Such a transaction would have to us the binding power that aspoken promise to an earthly friend always has to a man of honor. And what weneed is to see that God's presence is a certain fact always, and that every actof our soul is done right before Him, and that a word spoken in prayer is asreally spoken to Him, as if our eyes could see Him and our hands could touchHim. Then we shall cease to have such vague conceptions of our relations withHim, and shall feel the binding force of every word we say in His presence.
I know some will say here, "Ah, yes; but if Hewould only speak to me, and say that He took me when I gave myself to Him, Iwould have no trouble then in believing it." No, of course you would not; butHe does not generally say this until the soul has first proved its loyalty bybelieving what He has already said. It is he that believeth who has thewitness, not he that doubteth. And by His very command to us to presentourselves to Him a living sacrifice, He has pledged Himself to receive us. Icannot conceive of an honorable man asking another to give him a thing which,after all, he was doubtful about taking; still less can I conceive of a lovingparent acting so towards a darling child. "My son, give me thy heart," is asure warrant for knowing that the moment the heart is given, it will be takenby the One who has commanded the gift. We may, nay we must, feel the utmostconfidence then that when we surrender ourselves to the Lord, according to Hisown command, He does then and there receive us, and from that moment we areHis. A real transaction has taken place, which cannot be violated withoutdishonor on our part, and which we know will not be violated by Him.
In Deut. 26:17, 18, 19, we see God's way ofworking under these circumstances: --
"Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thyGod, and to walk in His ways and to keep His statutes, and His commandments,and His judgments, and to hearken unto His voice; and the Lord hath avouchedthee this day to be His peculiar people, as He hath promised thee, and thatthou shouldst keep all His commandments; . . . and that thou mayest be an holypeople unto the Lord, as He hath spoken."
When we avouch the Lord to be our God, and thatwe will walk in His ways and keep His commandments, He avouches us to be His,and that we shall keep all His commandments. And from that moment He takespossession of us. This has always been His principle of working, and itcontinues to be so. "Every devoted thing is most holy to the Lord." This seemsto me so plain as scarcely to admit of a question.
But if the soul still feels in doubt ordifficulty, let me refer you to a New Testament declaration which approachesthe subject from a different side, but which settles it, I think, quite asdefinitely. It is in 1 John 5:14, 15, and reads: "And this is the confidencethat we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hearethus; and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have thepetitions that we desired of Him." Is it according to His will that you shouldbe entirely consecrated to Him? There can be, of course, but one answer tothis, for He has commanded it. Is it not also according to His will that Heshould work in you to will and to do of His good pleasure? This question alsocan have but one answer, for He has declared it to be His purpose. You know,then, that these things are according to His will, therefore on God's own wordyou are obliged to know that He hears you; and knowing this much, you arecompelled to go further and know that you have the petitions that you havedesired of Him. That you have, I say, not will have, or may have, but have nowin actual possession. It is thus that we "obtain promises" by faith. It is thusthat we have "access by faith" into the grace that is given us in our LordJesus Christ. It is thus, and thus only, that we come to know our hearts are"purified by faith," and are enabled to live by faith, to stand by faith, towalk by faith.
I desire to make this subject so plain andpractical that no one need have any further difficulty about it, and thereforeI will repeat again just what must be the acts of your soul in order to bringyou out of this difficulty about consecration.
I suppose that you have trusted the Lord Jesusfor the forgiveness of your sins, and know something of what it is to belong tothe family of God, and to be made an heir of God through faith in Christ. Andnow you feel springing up in your soul the longing to be conformed to the imageof your Lord. In order for this, you know there must be an entire surrender ofyourself to Him, that He may work in you all the good pleasure of His will; andyou have tried over and over to do it, but hitherto without any apparentsuccess.
At this point it is that I desire to help you.What you must do now is to come once more to Him in a surrender of your wholeself to His will, as complete as you know how to make it. You must ask Him toreveal to you by His Spirit any hidden rebellion; and if He reveals nothing,then you must believe that there is nothing, and that the surrender iscomplete. This must, then, be considered a settled matter. You have abandonedyourself to the Lord, and from henceforth you do not in any sense belong toyourself; you must never even so much as listen to a suggestion to thecontrary. If the temptation comes to wonder whether you really have completelysurrendered yourself, meet it with an assertion that you have. Do not evenargue the matter. Repel any such idea instantly and with decision. You meant itthen, you mean it now, you have really done it. Your emotions may clamoragainst the surrender, but your will must hold firm. It is your purpose Godlooks at, not your feelings about that purpose, and your purpose, or will, istherefore the only thing you need attend to.
The surrender, then, having been made, never tobe questioned or recalled, the next point is to believe that God takes thatwhich you have surrendered, and to reckon that it is His. Not that it will beat some future time, but is now; and that He has begun to work in you to will,and to do, of His good pleasure. And here you must rest. There is nothing morefor you to do, for you are the Lord's now, absolutely and entirely in Hishands, and He has undertaken the whole care and management and forming of you;and will, according to His word, "work in you that which is well-pleasing inHis sight through Jesus Christ." But you must hold steadily here. If you beginto question your surrender, or God's acceptance of it, then your wavering faithwill produce a wavering experience, and He cannot work. But while you trust Heworks, and the result of His working always is to change you into the image ofChrist, from glory to glory, by His mighty Spirit.
Do you, then, now at this moment surrenderyourself wholly to Him? You answer, Yes. Then, my dear friend, begin at once toreckon that you are His; that He has taken you, and that He is working in youto will and to do of His good pleasure. And keep on reckoning this. You willfind it a great help to put your reckoning into words, and to say over and overto yourself and to your God, "Lord, I am thine; I do yield myself up to theeentirely, and I believe that thou dost take me. I leave myself with thee. Workin me all the good pleasure of thy will, and I will only lie still in thyhands, and trust thee."
Make this a daily definite act of your will, andmany times a day recur to it, as being your continual attitude before Him.Confess it to yourself. Confess it to your God. Confess it to your friends.Avouch the Lord to be your God continually and unwaveringly, and declare yourpurpose of walking in His ways and keeping His statutes; and you will find inpractical experience that He has avouched you to be His peculiar people andthat you shall keep all His commandments, and that you will be "an holy peopleunto the Lord, as He hath spoken."
A few simple rules may be found helpful here. Iwould advise the use of them in daily times of devotion, making them thedefinite test and attitude of the soul, until the light shines clearly on thismatter.
I. Express in definite words your faith in Christas your Saviour; and acknowledge definitely that you believe He has reconciledyou to God; according to 2 Cor. 5:18, 19.
II. Definitely acknowledge God as your Father,and yourself as His redeemed and forgiven child; according to Gal. v: 6.
III. Definitely surrender yourself to be all theLord's, body, soul, and spirit; and to obey Him in everything where His will ismade known; according to Rom. 12:12.
IV. Believe and continue to believe, against allseemings, that God takes possession of that which you thus abandon to Him, andthat He will henceforth work in you to will and to do of His good pleasure,unless you consciously frustrate His grace; according to 2 Cor. 6:17, 18, andPhil. 2:13.
V. Pay no attention to your feelings as a test ofyour relations with God, but simply attend to the state of your will and ofyour faith. And count all these steps you are now taking as settled, though theenemy may make it seem otherwise. Heb. 10:22, 23.
VI. Never, under any circumstances, give way forone single moment to doubt or discouragement. Remember, that all discouragementis from the devil, and refuse to admit it; according to John 14:1, 27.
VII. Cultivate the habit of expressing your faithin definite words, and repeat often, "I am all the Lord's and He is working inme now to will and to do of His good pleasure; according to Heb. 13:21.