This is what the term consecration properly means. It is the voluntary surrender or self-offering of the heart, by the constraint of love to be the Lord’s. Its glad expression is “I am my beloved’s” (Song of Songs 6:3).

It must spring, of course, from faith. There must be the full confidence that we are safe in this abandonment; that we are not falling over a precipice or surrendering ourselves to the hands of a judge, but that we are sinking into the Father’s arms and stepping into an infinite inheritance. Oh, it is an infinite inheritance! Oh, it is an infinite privilege to be permitted thus to give ourselves up to One who pledges Himself to make us all that we would love to be; nay, all that His infinite wisdom, power, and love will delight to accomplish in us!

It is the clay yielding itself to the potter’s hands, that it may be shaped into a vessel of honor, meet for the Master’s use.

It is the poor street waif consenting to become the child of a prince, that he may be educated and provided for; that he may be prepared to inherit all the wealth of his guardian.

He ventured all: the loss of place, and power, and love of kin— O bitter loss! O loneliness and pain! He gained the Christ! Who would not dare the loss Such priceless bliss to win? Christ for today, and each tomorrow— Christ!

“PAUL” BY J. MANNINGTON DEXTER

Make a supreme consecration!