Keys to Consecration

What does it mean to be consecrated?

The word consecrate means to be set apart for the service of God.  There were four main words that were used in the Hebrew to describe this:

1.) Haram - to devote

2.) Nazar - to separate

3.) Qadhesh - to set apart

4.) Mille yadh - to fill the hand: used to describe the ordination of priests

The term consecrate was applied to several aspects of the Jewish life:

• Places: Holy of Holies - The inner most part of the temple

• People: Priests and prophets

• Things: Altar of Incense and the Ark of the Covenant

• Times: Various feasts and special days such as Yom Kippur or Passover

A consecrated life is one that seeks to bring honor to the name of Christ:

• Identified with Christ: Do people know you are a Christian?

• Imitation of Christ: Do you seek to become more and more like Jesus?

• Inauguration of the Holy Spirit: Does the Holy Spirit reside within your life? Does He have control of how you live? Sanctification is inaugurated in a moment but experienced over a lifetime.  Too many people get focused on the moment and forget that it is meant to be a daily experience.  When was the last time that the Holy Spirit moved you to change something in your life?

Consecration is evidenced in the constant striving for the completion of Christ’s work within a person’s life.

Paul gives us an excellent understanding of consecration as it applies to the life of a believer.  God moves from being converted to be being consecrated.  God wants more for your life than to just be saved because he wants you to be filled with His Spirit and sanctified.

1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2

Consecration Means Sacrificial Living

Sacrifice Your Body:

Paul is calling the Roman believers to not just surrender their physical bodies to God but the entirety of their mortal existence.  In other words, Jesus wants everything from your life.  He wants your dreams, your desires and your disappointments.  Jesus wants all that you have, all that you are and all that you will become, surrendered to Him.

This means that every possession is Christ’s not yours.  This means that every moment is Christ’s not yours.  Every effort of your life is Christ’s not yours.  When you hold something back from Christ, you are literally saying that He is not worth giving up what you want.  We are meant to live for Christ with every breath we take and love Him with every fiber of our being.

Sacrifice Your Service:

Paul calls us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. This seems like the ultimate paradox because the Jewish mind set would have automatically assumed that a sacrifice was dead.  It would have seemed impossible to have a living sacrifice.  The sacrifice was given by shedding its blood and letting it die on the altar.

When you give a living sacrifice to Christ it is an offering of a life that was once dead and has been given new life.  When we were dead in our sins we were not truly living but through Christ we find true life.  Remember Paul is talking to believers here because he called them brothers.  As believers we must strive to live lives that are separated for God’s service.  Lives that are set apart for His use.

The problem with living sacrifices is that they sometimes crawl off the altar - Annon.

Living sacrifices are a daily choice and is an issue of the heart.  Each and every day you get up and make the choice to either live for God or live for something else.

Paul adds yet another ingredient to the mix of consecration - spiritual acts of worship.  The Greek states this a little differently.  The term here for spiritual is logikos which is where we get our English word logic.  It means to be logical or reasonable.  Paul moves us full circle because he starts with our mortal existence, then adds our spiritual life and now finishes with the reason.  What is the purpose here?

We must live to serve God with a focus through all that we are and every ability that we have been given.  The word for worship here literally means to serve with all of one’s strength.  God wants us to serve Him with all of our being and all of our strength.

Consecration Means Separated Living

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world:

Paul is confronting a very real problem in the Roman church and in the church of today. There is a problem when the church takes on the character of the world. Paul is talking about allowing the world around us to shape and change us into its image, but Jesus wants us to be changed into His likeness.

The central issue here is the fact that if a Christian allows the world around them to continue to shape their values and virtues, they will never experience consecration.  As Christians we are to be influenced by God!

Consecration Means Sanctified Thinking

Sanctified transformation:

The key to experiencing consecration does not come from our own efforts but instead comes from the work of the Holy Spirit within us. The Greek word here is metamorphusthe, which is where we get our English word metamorphosis. The transformation that Paul is talking about is from the inside out and all of this must begin with the mind. The mind is the source of both the thoughts and the actions of a person’s life.

Paul says that the mind must be renewed before a Christian can experience a transformed life. This renewing literally means to have a new way of thinking. The Greek word for renew is close to the word for resurrection. This act is only through the power of God in the Holy Spirit and it represents a complete change from one form to another.

Sanctified desire:

Once the mind is renewed and transformed, the way is paved for us to become more and more like Jesus. This change gives a transformed desire and a longing to do the will of God.

Paul actively describes God’s will in three powerful ways:

• Good - The will of God is useful, joyful and beneficial

• Pleasing - The will of God is welcomed

• Perfect - The will of God is without error and brought to completion

~ Bits and Pieces of sermon by David Dewitt

Heavenly Father, I thank You for all the mercies You have bestowed on me.

I thank You for the forgiveness of my sins and for the gift of eternal life You have given me in Your Son Jesus Christ.

I thank You that He gave Himself for me, so that I might give myself to You.

I now present to You, all I am and all I have, as a living sacrifice to You. It’s my logical response to Your love for me. It’s my spiritual act of worship to You.

Transform me as a person by renewing my mind by Your Spirit, so that I think the way You want me to think about everything, especially about You and about Your will.

Give me discernment by Your Spirit, as I seek to put Your will into practice in my everyday life. Enable me to recognise Your will, and discover as I seek to do it, that it truly is good, acceptable and perfect.

I ask these things so that You may be honoured and glorified, in and through my life, in Jesus’ name I pray. AMEN.

Prayer by Jim Holbeck

Deliverance Prayers - Day 1 - Breaking Soul Ties

HOW WE GET CAUGHT IN SEXUAL TRAPS - I am going to briefly discuss some of the traps Satan has set for us in the sexual area which will hold not only us but generations of our descendants in its' bondage. It will not be a pretty picture but perhaps you will see yourself and your children in these traps. There is good news for all Christians who desire to stop the effects of past sins. Jesus was made accursed for us, therefore we may break the curses, call out demons and watch very carefully for Satan's tricks in the sexual area.

The number one reason we have found for the sinful sexual activity of our day is that proper love relationships are not shown in the home. In many homes, even Christian homes, the proper relationships are not lived. Children need to see and feel the love between parents and themselves. Many people do not love their children. Many who do may not be able to show love properly to the children due to the problems they have with rejection themselves. Love is constant; it does not turn off when you don't get your way or when you fail or when someone you love fails. Please read and study II Tim. 3:1-5.

The next reason (one which grows out of number one) is rejection. A rejected person is one who is always looking for someone to love them without reservation. Many substitute lust (which tries to grab for itself) in place of love (which is caring, giving and protecting). Isa. 53:3, He was despised and rejected of men (all men). Rejection is a tool Satan uses on all of us. He used it repeatedly on Jesus. We have come to believe it is the first deep wound a person receives and ,if not healed, provides the doorway for demons to enter.

Much of the sexual activity of today is rejected people trying to feel loved. They have just fallen for one of Satan's tricks. Sexual activity is not love; it is just sex. Rejection causes us not to respect ourselves therefore we do not respect others nor their rights.

Reason number three is curses playing out their legal hold. When you or one of your direct line ancestors commits a sexual sin which carries a curse, demons which accompany that curse will follow all the descendants and try to bring each one into sexual sin. The demons have a right to do this until the curse runs out provided no one else adds to the curse or someone learns of breaking the curses and the casting out of the demons which accompany the curse. The purpose of this is to destroy whole family lines; I have seen this happen (King David's family and Saul's family).

PRAYER - Here is a prayer which has helped many to untangle the bondage and break free (pray out loud for more spiritual power):

Lord Jesus, I bring before you all my sexual sins (by name); I renounce them all and I am sorry for participation's in them. I do now repent and ask forgiveness for them all. I now break in the name of the Lord Jesus the hold these sins have had on me. I also break all soul ties between me and every person (name each person).In Joel I am told that those who call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered. In particular I confess the following: all preoccupation with the sensual desire and appetites, and indulgences of them; all longing and ardent desire for what is forbidden; all inordinate affection, all unnatural and unrestrained passions and lusts; all promoting or partaking of that which tends to produce lewd emotions, and foster sexual sin and lust. I further confess all filthy communication: obscene and filthy language, conversation and jokes; lewd and obscene music, poetry, literature and art; all pornography; all acts of sodomy, adultery, immorality, fornication, masturbation, oral sex, effeminacy and homosexuality; also all affection for and attachment to philosophies, religions, and life styles which glorify, promote and condone sexual conduct in thought, word and deed contrary to the standard for believers in the Bible.

I further renounce the expression of these philosophies, religions and life styles in art, literature, mass media, and public practices and attitudes. Lord, I ask that Your Spirit reveal other sexual offenses in my life that I have committed.

Father, I confess and renounce all occult involvement, both known and unknown, by me or my ancestors. I hate Satan, his demons, and all his works; I count all that offends you, Father, as my enemy.

Lord I ask you to cleanse, heal and deliver me. I thank you for forgiving my sin and cleansing me from all unrighteousness. I also now break all curses (here break all curses known to you and ask God to reveal any others) I have brought upon myself and my children, and I break all those I inherited in the name of Jesus Christ, God's Son. I do now claim and accept your forgiveness and cleansing.

Satan, I have confessed my sins, and broken all soul ties and curses in name of Jesus, and I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ my Saviour. I am reclaiming every area of my mind and body which I formerly gave to you and your demons. I claim freedom and cleansing in the areas of sexual sin, and I renounce you and your hosts, and command that they leave me now in the name of Jesus Christ.

I now reclaim all ground that I have ever given to Satan in body, mind, soul, or spirit. I dedicate all of my life to you Dear Lord, to be used by You. I ask You to empower every area of my life, so that in the future they might be used in service to You. Amen.

~Bits and Pieces of the DELIVERANCE MANUAL by Gene and Earline Moody

Born to Overcome

Proverbs 13:12 - Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.

1 John 5:4 - For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world-our faith.

Psalm 125:2 - As the mountains surround Jerusalem, So the LORD surrounds His people From this time forth and forever.

We are living in a materialistic world. Satan can destroy us by using our fleshly desires. There are two forces at work on the earth – the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of God and both are in a battle for your soul. Only you can make the decision who will have power over your life.

The greatest wars ever fought are not between nations or peoples, but for your heart. The flesh represents the power and evil of Satan and the Spirit of God represents the power and love of God.

You are not born to overcome, but born again to overcome. Overcomers receive the crown of life and eternal life.

1. Know that you can overcome

Numbers 13:30 - Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, "Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it."

2. Be righteous

Romans 12:21 - Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

3. Discern Satan’s plan against you

Ephesians 5:11 - And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.

4. Understand the battle

Ephesians 6:12 - For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Become good at your battles.

5. Be submitted

Hebrews 13:17 - Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. 

Bits and Pieces of sermon by Jeff  Van Wyk