Consecration, giving God all our affection, is the beginning of a believer’s life with the Lord. If we are not consecrated to the Lord, there will not be one trace of spiritual life in our lives. There is nothing more important in a Christian’s consecration than his surrendering all of his affection to the Lord. It is much easier for the majority of people to give up their time, money, strength, and other things to the Lord. However, our affection is not easy to give up. If we put Jesus second to anybody or anything, He will not have all our love, our affection, as He demands.
We must learn how important it is for us to surrender all our affection to God. God is not willing to share our heart with anyone or anything. He doesn’t want the largest part of our heart. He wants it all, or wants nothing, because to God if it isn’t all, it is nothing. God is not happy with ninety-nine and ninety-nine one-hundredth percent of our hearts. He demands all our love. This demand of God is very offensive to most people’s self life. The Lord tells us to give up everything we have and love only Him because He is God, the Pearl of great price. If we love God, the Pearl of great price, enough, we will give up everything we have in the world to possess Him.
It is not at all pleasing to God if we labor, doing the works He requires of us, with hearts that are not filled with love for Him and Him only. Most people don’t realize that many of the people who do the works of God don’t love Him. Search your heart to know the reason why you are working for Him. Many people work for God without love for God in their hearts. They believe that their loved ones will be saved if they labor for God without loving Him. However, there is no scriptural basis for people to believe such a thing. Their love is terribly misdirected if it is for relatives, for friends, or for anything else in the world apart from God.
Abraham proved his affection to God by being willing to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, as the Lord commanded him to do. God later spared Abraham from performing this heart-rending task. Isaac was spared because Abraham proved his love, his affection for God, by his willingness to do whatever God would ask him. God insists that we lay everything beloved to us on the altar. God will play second fiddle to no one or nothing. For God to compete with anyone or anything is out of the question. God will not tolerate any competition. Nothing pleases God as much as our complete love.
God sees everything, even our thoughts, and hears our speech. If you try to hide or withhold anything secretly from Him, that is, hold back anything from being placed on the altar, He will know it, and you will never be able to experience the manifestation of God’s power living and working in your life. The Kingdom of Heaven is brought about in this world by our obedience. The work of God in the world has been minimal because so few have placed everything of themselves on the altar for the fire from Heaven to consume. When we put anyone before God, both our souls and the Kingdom of Heaven suffer loss.
The King of Israel, the Psalmist David, understood this fact very well. He elaborated on it in Psalm 73:25: “Whom have I in Heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.” In other words, David is saying that he doesn’t love anybody in Heaven but the Lord, and he doesn’t love anyone but the Lord here on earth. This perhaps is one of the reasons he was the apple of God’s eye. We need to pray for a pure and perfect heart, one which loves the Lord alone. The type of heart that loves the Lord above silver or gold and all the riches of this fallen world put together.
Again, in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul’s assessment of truth is that he counted everything in the world to be as “dung, that [he] may win Christ” (Philippians. 3:8). This doesn’t say much for the world and the things therein, does it? But that is what people are doing when they are concerned about the cares of the world, their friends, and their family rather than God. Everything of the world and in the world is nothing but dung according to Paul and all those who will enter Heaven. So if you know what’s good for you, don’t place your affection on dung, place it upon God.
