Thanks you lord for taking it all to the cross that we may be saved, Be with us as we celebrate the love and peace your son broght to our souls.
The first incentive to consecration, the giving of ourselves and our all to Him, is that He first loved us. He loved you and He loves you... Look at the mountain of sin that His love buried in the deepest sea and buried once and for all.... Imagine for a moment that your sins were not covered, that everything you ever thought about, that everything that ever passed through your mind, even if for seconds only, was put on a television screen and that you were brought out so that people might look at you and also see what was on the screen, not just as thoughts but as acts (for thoughts and acts are difficult to separate). How would you take it? Would you not wish that the ground would open up and swallow you to hide you from what you have been? Oh! but His love has covered it all. The Hymn writer wrote out of an experience of His love:
My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought,
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to His cross and I bear it no more,
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!
Is that not love? And He took it away, not by a mechanical process, but by personal identification with it. He who knew no sin became sin that you might become the righteousness of God. He took your sin on Himself and He imparted His righteousness to you. He did not manifest His love only in taking away your sin. He has made you an heir of God. He has made you a co-heir with Christ. He has raised you and caused you to be seated in heavenly places in Christ and with Christ, and you are destined for the throne of God, to share rulership in the kingdom with the Lord Jesus... This is love. So God gave us Jesus to be our possession for the past. He has also given us Christ to be our possession for the present, and for all of the future. And more than that He will not withhold any good thing from you who walk uprightly. Psalm 84:11
Think of it. He is the God and the Lord of all the universe. All that is in the world is His. And He says He will not withhold any good thing from you if you walk uprightly. What an incentive to holy living! What an incentive to consecration! ... I can and I must give Him my all, knowing that I am letting the One who will withhold no good thing from me have all. So, instead of me trying to keep things for myself; instead of me trying to supply my own needs, I give Him all that I have and then He takes the responsibility for all that I will ever need.
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