The Multiplied Blessings of a Consecrated Life

Godly Examples of the Consecrated Life

One of my favorite TV shows is Little House on the Prairie.   I've always wanted to live in that time period - the 1800s.   Now I realize I am greatly romanticizing this era, as it was anything but easy...

The aspect I find so appealing about this snapshot in time is the simplicity...  Simplicity of family, gathered around hearth, at the end of a day of hard work; simplicity of enjoying the beauty of the land and it's provision; simplicity of gathering for fellowship in a small congregation of your neighbors; and most especially, the simplicity of living a life holy and separate unto the Lord...

Caroline Ingalls exemplified that holy and separate life, a life consecrated to the Lord, through the work of her hands - through her devotion to her husband in cheerful service as she made a lovely home; through lovingly raising her children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, never raising her voice; and through her example of always being Christ-centered in her words and actions, even when dealing with difficult people or situations.

When I look upon tombstones from long ago, a majority of those precious saints left engraved legacies of Scripture and Christ-centered quotes which told of a life lived holy and separate unto the Lord...

I am saddened when I think of how far we have come from lives whose center is Christ and the church, to a world that has systematically stripped God from all vestiges where He once was revered.

I am saddened that more and more churches today are choosing to look like the world in a misguided attempt to attract the world...

I am saddened that more and more Believers, myself included, have moved so far away from the Caroline Ingalls, to lives caught up in self, busyness, and the world, which do not testify of a set apart life in Christ Jesus.

Living a Life Consecrated to God

Consecrate is a word you don't hear much anymore, even in church circles...  It is a word that needs to be revived...

What does it mean to be set apart/consecrated?

:consecrate/sanctify/make holy, " means separation with relationship to God. 
Bakers Evangelical Dictionary

You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy 

and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.

Leviticus 20:26

You have been set apart as holy to the LORD your God, 

and he has chosen you from all the nations of the earth to be his own special treasure.

Deuteronomy 14:2 

because it is written, “You shall be holy (set apart), for I am holy.”

1 Peter 1:16 {Amplified version}

Our great God has proclaimed us holy - His special treasure!!  He has separated us out, from those who are perishing, to be His!

Why o' why are we choosing not to live as God's special treasure, allowing self and the world to rule our actions.  How much harder we make it for ourselves when we do not live a life consecrated to the Lord.

O' the blessings that are missed when we do not consecrate our lives - our bodies, our words, our actions, our families, our circumstances, our work, our provisions, to the Lord.

The Benefits of Consecration to God

I recently read the following verses when the Holy Spirit revealed something new and profound to me that I had never saw the many times I had read this Scripture before...

Then He commanded the crowd to sit down on the ground. 

Taking the seven loaves, He gave thanks, broke the loaves, 

and kept on giving them to His disciples to set before the people. 

So they served the loaves to the crowd. 

Mark 8:6-7

The act of giving thanks and consecrating to the Heavenly Father multiplies the blessing.

When the Lord Jesus took the seven loaves, He gave thanks over the bread and was then able to feed the crowd as if He had started with hundreds of loaves.

"The thanksgiving was not for any uncertain or unexpected gift. It was rather a proclamation of his fellowship with God. So that the true nature of prayer in the case of our blessed Lord was the conscious realization of the Divine will, and not a petition for that which was contingent.
Pulpit Commentary {Mark 8:6-7}

The Holy Spirit continued His lesson by showing me that when we thank God for every aspect of our lives - every need, every desire, every question, every trial, every joy, every work, every effort, every service, every calling - consecrating it all to our Heavenly Father, He will multiply the blessings...  by providing ten-fold for your need; blessing you above and beyond what you hoped or imagined; increasing your wisdom; building up your strength, generating your peace;  producing your healing;  exceeding your joy;  propagating your skill for every work, effort and service; and expanding your calling.

The bounty of Christ is always ready; to show that, he repeated this miracle. His favours are renewed, as our wants and necessities are. And those need not fear want, who have Christ to live upon by faith, and do so with thanksgiving.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary {Mark 8:6-7}

We are God's special treasure whom He wants to lavish with His love and blessings.

Living the Consecrated Life

Let us not get in our own way living to self and to the world, but rather daily, hourly, minute by minute remember the dear price our Lord paid to spur us on to live a consecrated life to Him...

“That cross has separated me from the world that crucified my Lord, just as much as if His body were now on the cross, marred and wounded by the world.”  G.V. Wigram

“A soul disengaged from the world is a heavenly one; and then are we ready for heaven when our heart is there before us.” John Newton

“He that chooses God, devotes himself to God as the vessels of the sanctuary were consecrated and set apart from common to holy uses, so he that has chosen God to be his God, has dedicated himself to God, and will no more be devoted to profane uses.”  Thomas Watson

May we all experience the multiplied blessings of a consecrated life.

For a similar post, please click on the following:

A Call to Simplicity

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