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Wanting to want the fully consecrated life


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#1 Kevin Blankenship

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Posted 14 April 2014 - 04:28 AM

Just musing aloud here:  There is, inside of me, the knowledge that I COULD be more consecrated to God and for God......if I WANTED that.

   There is a fact about me that I have been aware of for some time.  If I WANT something.....I will GET it, (or DO it, or HAVE it).

  So I have changed my praying lately. "God, I WANT the deeper and more fully consecrated life with YOU" BUT........I also want to play with my toys and watch my favorite TV shows.  (A few months ago I purchased one of those ROKU boxes that plug into one's TV and allows him/her to get British TV, and other countries TV. Lately, I have been watching:"AlL Things Great and Small" based on a book by famed veterinarian James Herriot.  It's a wonderfully simple TV show, made in the 70's and 80's based on the life of this Vet and his adventures and misadventures in the Yorkshire Dales. Very very interesting and it gets me out of this house for an hour or two each day (in my mind). But if I don't watch it, I'll spend the majority of my free time watching past episodes because it is so easy to just sit there and watch.  I glance over at my Bible from time to time and a pang hits me and the thought: "You KNOW what you SHOULD be doing."

   Today's Tozer Devotion (4/14/14) really hit me between the eyes.  There was a time when I couln't be pried away from my old Christian books. My Thomas Manton series (a Puritan), all of my Tozer collection, my Andrew Murray collection,  etc etc etc etc. But my interest has waned.

   But I KNOW now that my "WANT TO-er" has been taken captive and I aim on getting it back. My prayer today is for God to make me want to WANT HIM more than anything else this world can afford. There is SO MUCH stuff in the world that can take up the time of a bored person.  And I recognize the solid fact that I'm a prime target for these little escapades because of my situation and because of my personality (defects). But I use them as NO EXCUSE. I KNOW that GOD will rescue me. 

   I prayed VERY earnestly that God would cause me to lose interest in a couple of hobbies which where taking up ALOT of my time.  He answered those prayers.

   Since TODAY is the day of salvation.......I will start TODAY at developing the good reading abs praying habits that are conducive to a good, rock-solid walk with Jesus. (I'll let ya know how it goes this evening).  God gave SO MUCH.  I give SO LITTLE. But this is not yet merely another self deprecating post, but an "accountability" post. I am using y'all as my accountability group. Hope ya don't mind. Thanks. Kevin Blankenship


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#2 chipped china

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Posted 14 April 2014 - 04:49 PM

My days consist of doing farm chores and house cleaning. I have more work  than I can do right now because I had both my knees replaced 5 months ago. So I work a little and then spend time with God, reading listening and some praying. When I listen to commentary I play puzzle games because I have to multitask.
 
In some ways I am consecrated to the Lord because He is my refuge, my strength, my hope. In my human state I love Him the best I can and desire to know Him better. He is my favorite and I'm awe struck at His Holiness and Omnipotence. He's slowly making me a new person, for instance I can't watch some of the television I use to watch and I watch less. It's because compared to learning about Jesus it's boring or distasteful, not that I'm disciplining myself. If I could get All Creatures Great and Small I'd watch that in a heart beat, wonderful show and books.

So, here's the "but" Am I consecrated to Jesus unto death? I think I am but I've never walked through that and I pray with trembling that I will look to Him in that moment of reckoning. I know one thing for sure, it won't be me standing for Him, it will be Him standing for me. This lesson became more real to me as I was studying Matthew 14 when Peter tries to walk on the water. As long as his eyes were on Him he was fine, but faith and fear cannot reside together so as soon as we are drawn into the wind and waves we sink.

This is what Tozer has to say about being consecrated.


LIVE FOR GOD'S GLORY


It may be difficult for the average Christian to get hold of the idea that his daily labors can be performed as acts of worship acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. We must practice living to the glory of God actually and determinedly. By one act of consecration of our total selves to God we can make every subsequent act express that consecration. By meditation upon this truth, by talking it over with God often in our prayers, by recalling it to our minds frequently as we move about among men, a sense of its wondrous meaning will begin to take hold of us. The New Testament accepts as a matter of course that in His incarnation, our Lord took upon Him a real human body. He lived in that body here among men and never once performed a non-sacred act! Brethren, we must offer all our acts to God and believe that He accepts them. We should then keep reminding God in our times of private prayer that we mean every act for His glory. We thus meet the temptations and trials by the exercise of an aggressive faith in the sufficiency of Christ!

I don't know about you but I don't want to be an average Christian. The honest truth is that's exactly what I am most of the time. With the revelation of Tozer simple words it gives me guidelines for how to move closer to a sacred life. Whether I am working, playing or studying, I will try to glorify Him by bringing Him to mind. And I will realize that faith casts out fear, and that takes practice.

Here is a prayer at the end of another Tozer writing. The Pursuit of God, chapter 10

Lord, I would trust Thee completely; I would be altogether Thine; I would exalt Thee above all. I desire that I may feel no sense of possessing anything outside of Thee. I want constantly to be aware of Thy overshadowing Presence and to hear Thy speaking Voice. I long to live in restful sincerity of heart. I want to live so fully in the Spirit that all my thought may be as sweet incense ascending to Thee and every act of my life may be an act of worship. Therefore I pray in the words of Thy great servant of old, "I beseech Thee so for to cleanse the intent of mine heart with the unspeakable gift of Thy grace, that I may perfectly love Thee and worthily praise Thee." And all this I confidently believe Thou wilt grant me through the merits of Jesus Christ Thy Son. Amen.
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#3 Kevin Blankenship

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Posted 14 April 2014 - 09:04 PM

Good heavens, I just re-read what I wrote this morning.  I made some dreadful errors in there. While the subject heading is accurate, I wouldn't put much stock in the contents.  I was still sleepy when I was saying that stuff.

  The GIST of what I was saying is this: The thing inside of me that WANTS, or rather, my WILL.......is misdirected.  If I get it into my mind to grow a large garden......I WILL do it.  If I get it into my mind to go find some Civil War relics with my metal detector (on land where I have permission).......I WILL accomplish it. Or, I will spend a great deal of time and go without food to accomplish it. I will brave poison ivy, chiggers, mosquitoes.  In other words......if I WANT something.......I'll HAVE it. 

  Now.....if I can ever get my WILL to line up with GOD's Will.......I will be a force to be reckoned with. Not saying that in pride.  I just know how  I get when I get something on my mind and get determined about it.

   My prayer is that God gives me a complete desire to desire the Will of God. I cannot seem to do it on my own.....at all. I have heard people say that when they got saved.......they just dropped everything, and put all of their energy into serving the Lord. I am afraid that I cannot say that. Oh.....maybe at one time........but even then.....my motives where questionable. So........I pray that God SO fills me with HIS Spirit that I will be addicted to the ministry of the saints. There. That is kinda what I was saying!!!


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#4 fuzzykiwi

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Posted 15 April 2014 - 06:08 AM

Hey Kevin 

 

I'm a Blankenship in TN also.  Just wanted to say that since we can direct our will  2 Peter 1:3-8 tells us what to direct it toward and a promise of the outcome .

 

seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us [d]by His own glory and [e]excellence. [f]For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral [g]excellence, and in your moral excellence,knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

(bold added )

So there are several character traits that we can strive to increase in following Jesus.

 

2nd I've always found online accountability a iffy thing since it depends on me if I log on to read the posts etc.  There is a site that you make a commitment contract with and have someone in real life to be the referring then have either folks online on in real life cheer you on.    Check out Stickk.com  to see if it's something that might help 

 

Dwayne Blankenship

 

 


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#5 chipped china

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Posted 15 April 2014 - 05:44 PM

Kevin, no matter how you say it, I know that Lord has good things for you. With a God like ours how can we lose! Just love and worship Him, He will bear the fruit!

New Living Translation
O LORD my God, you have performed many wonders for us. Your plans for us are too numerous to list. You have no equal. If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them.


Jeremiah 29:11

King James Version (KJV)


11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.


Isaiah 58:11

King James Version (KJV)


11 And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.


1 Corinthians 2:9

King James Version (KJV)


9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
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#6 DonnaA

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Posted 17 April 2014 - 04:39 AM

Totally understand where you're coming from, Kevin ... a daily struggle for me to live a more "consecrated life" as well ...

 

Tozer today ... (April 17) .... my goal ... "seekings and findings, self-repudiations, tough disciplines and daily dyings" .....

 

 

Let a man become enamored of Eternal Wisdom and set his heart to win her, and he takes on himself a full-time, all engaging pursuit. Thereafter he will have room for little else. Thereafter his whole life will be filled with seekings and findings, self-repudiations, tough disciplines and daily dyings as he is being crucified unto the world and the world unto him.


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Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. 

We are pressured in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; 

we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed.

~2 Corinthians 4:7-9~


#7 Kevin Blankenship

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Posted 17 April 2014 - 03:31 PM

FuzzyKiwi, my people, or rather, my father was raised in Cambell and Scott counties. In Elk Valley, Tn.  Jellico, TN, etc etc etc.  His father, my grandfather was State Representative for Cambell and Scott counties.  Are we kin? 

   More importantly, I appreciate all of the uplifting replies!!!!!!!!  Yes, Tozer's Daily Devotion for today is speaks to this very well. But y'all do as good a job.


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