10-16. Acceptable Consecration
“Present yourself unto God, as those that are alive from the dead” (Rom. 6:13).
The growth and consolidation of one’s spiritual life is predicated upon clear knowledge of the dual facts of Romans 6:11—dead unto sin; alive unto God. This must come first: Know! “Consider what I say, and the Lord give thee understanding in all things” (2 Tim. 2:7).
“Many have taken the word ‘present’ to imply consecration (which it does), without looking carefully into its content. It is not the consecration of our ‘old man’ with its instincts and resources, his natural wisdom, strength and other gifts, to the Lord Jesus for Him to use. This will be clear at once from the little clause ‘as alive from the dead’ (Rom. 6:13).
“For what is to be consecrated is not what belongs to the old creation. The ‘presenting’ spoken of is the outcome of my knowing my old man to have been crucified (Rom. 6:6), and my reckoning myself alive unto God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 6:11). Knowing, reckoning, presenting ourselves to Him: that is the divine order.”
“It is one thing to renounce or to drop off certain old things, and quite another to be occupied with new things. Nuns renounce the world, but they are not engrossed with the risen Lord Jesus Christ. It must be not only forgetting the things that are behind, but also reaching out unto the things that are before.
“It is what I give myself to that colors me and imparts character to me, not the fact of having abandoned other things. People often dwell unduly on what they have renounced, and are too indifferent to that which they should press toward, forgetting that it is the latter that will form them (2 Cor. 3:18).”
“Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:2).