Consecration

Absolutely Abandoned to Jesus Christ – Oswald Chambers

Whenever our Lord talked about the relation of a disciple to Himself it was in terms of mystical union: “I am the vine [not the root of the vine, but the vine itself], ye are the branches.” We have not paid enough attention to the illustrations Jesus uses. This is the picture of sanctification in the individual, a completeness of relationship between Jesus Christ and myself. Pharisaic holiness means that my eyes are set on my own whiteness and I become a separate individual. I have the notion that I have to be something; I have not, I have to be absolutely abandoned to Jesus Christ, so one with Him that I never think of myself apart from Him. Love is never self-conscious.

– Oswald Chambers –
from Biblical Ethics

The Reason for Backsliding – Charles Finney

The secret of backsliding is, that reformations are not carried deep enough. Christians are not set with all their hearts to aim at a speedy deliverance from all sin, but on the contrary are left, and in many instances taught, to indulge the expectation that they shall sin as long as they live.

– Charles Finney –

Being Used By God, for God – Bramwell Booth

When Christ formed in us finds free course for all His mind and all His passion; when our eyes are opened to the great purposes of His life in the salvation of the whole world; and when we hear, through Him, the cry of those for whom He was born, and for whom He died, God will pour out on us grace to send us forth—grace sufficient, grace abundant, grace triumphant. Have you come to this? Can you say He is thus dwelling in you, and working in you, to will and to do of His good pleasure?

Do not turn away with the paralyzing fear that it cannot be; that the life of Jesus can never be lived out again in flesh and blood. Remember, He is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” All He was in Bethlehem, to Mary and Joseph; all He was to His work-mates in Nazareth; all He was in the wilderness, fighting with fiends, in the deserts feeding the hungry, or among the multitude—healing the sick, blessing the little children, casting out devils, and preaching the Kingdom; all He was in Bethany, weeping over Lazarus, and crying, “Lazarus, come forth”; in the garden of His agony, in the darkness of His cross, in the hour of His Resurrection, all this—all-all-all—He is today. He belongs to the everlasting Now. All He was to the martyrs who died for His Name, all He has been to our fathers, He is to us, and will be to our children, for with Him is no variableness nor shadow of turning. Yes! This unchanging Christ “is in us, except we be reprobate,” the Life and Image of God, and the Hope of Glory.

– Bramwell Booth – 
from Our Master