Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Exodus 29:44–46; 30:25–30
“So I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests. Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. They will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.
"Make these into a sacred anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer. It will be the sacred anointing oil. Then use it to anoint the tent of meeting, the ark of the covenant law, the table and all its articles, the lampstand and its accessories, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the basin with its stand. You shall consecrate them so they will be most holy, and whatever touches them will be holy.
Anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them so they may serve me as priests.”
CONSIDER THIS
We come again to one of the most significant terms in all of the Bible. You recognized it.
Consecrate.
This is what people do when God draws near. God is holy—a divine being from another realm, of another multi-infinity of orders of magnitude. But notice how the text opens:
So I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests.
God is so completely other than us that there is nothing we can do to prepare to be in his presence. He has to make a way. That's what God is saying and doing in today's text.
We do not consecrate ourselves.
We cannot consecrate ourselves.
So I will consecrate. Almighty, Holy, Uncreated, Unapproachable, I-Am-That-I Am God does the consecrating. We present ourselves for consecration, but it is God who consecrates.
That's what we are doing every single day here on the Wake-Up Call. We are not having quiet time. We are entering into a holy rite of consecration. We are winning the day. I frequently say to our church here in Gillett: "If you want to win the day, you have to win the morning."
Then I add, "If you want to win the week, you have to win Sunday."
And winning the morning is all about consecration. I recognize people read the Wake-Up Call at different times of day, but if I'm the doctor (and I'm not) and I'm writing the prescription, I'm saying: "Take the medicine in the morning." The morning is for consecration. Consecration opens the door into the vast cathedral of the Word of God, which is the house of transformation—the place of beholding and becoming. And transformation opens the door into the fields of the world, longing for the demonstration—hungry for the seeds of grace and love; of justice with mercy; of blessing and encouragement.
“So I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests.
I'm considering some transformation to our prayer of consecration.
"Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." (Eph. 5:14)
Abba, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Today, I receive afresh in my inmost being—the sanctuary of your Spirit—the transforming gift of your Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
And let's be clear. We are not consecrated by this prayer or by anything else we do. We are consecrated by God, by the blood of Jesus, through the curtain, which is his body.
THE PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE
Lord Jesus, you are my Deliverer.
I receive your deliverance from casual religion and into real consecration. And I receive your deliverance from rigorous striving, which is so often the turn I mistakenly make trying to escape my casual approach. I receive your deliverance into the simple, humble faith of a consecrated life. Abba, I belong to you.
It will be for your glory, for others' gain, and for my good.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be. World without end, amen! Amen!
