Consecration and Prayer by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 28, 1907

Consecration and Prayer

By C. M. S.

He who is seeking to do the Master’s will, with a heart filled with his love, must ask himself at times the question, Is my work accomplishing anything for God? How often, at the close of some effort, it may be after some sermon, some special meeting, some attempt to give individual help, there comes a feeling of dissatisfaction with the character of the effort made. You feel that you have not properly set before your audience, your class, or some unconverted soul, Christ crucified and glorified; that you have not reached the heart; that your lips have been touched with a frosted steel instead of coals “from off the altar;” that your hearers have seen you rather than the likeness of Christ; that they have heard your words, and not the words of God; that hungry hearts have not been satisfied by what you have attempted to do.

There may be a multitude of reasons — there generally is one, a failure rightly to connect with the great Source of power. In that, of course, is involved the matter of continuous consecration. There the cause lies, though a thousand things may have brought it about. The two important things are the recognition of the lack and the finding of the remedy.

Christ bade his disciples to tarry at Jerusalem until they should be endued with power from on high. They tarried; but while they tarried, they were busy in prayer. There were others tarrying in Jerusalem, but the praying tarriers were alone endued with the power. They had consecrated themselves to his service already. So consecration and prayer made the combination which brought convicting and converting power from on high. That is the combination which will bring it now. But that consecration is a consecration that means service; and that prayer must come from the lips of those whose hearts are set on service — wherever the Master wills. That gave the power of Pentecost, and it will give power now.

If your work is fruitless and unsatisfactory, try this combination, consecration and prayer. That means the cutting loose from the attractions and ambitions of this world — not half-way, but wholly. It means the very life and all there is of one. The mind that is busy with worldly planning is not endued with the power of winning souls for Christ. The longer we continue in and of the world, the more tightly will the tendrils of our affections twine around the things of earth. We must cut loose, uproot, and reset.

That accomplished by God’s help, consecrate all unto him, and “watch unto prayer.” That will bring into the life that oneness of purpose which will enable one to say with Paul: “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” That oneness of purpose made Paul a power in the world for God. It will do the same for every soul to-day that is willing to pay the price Paul paid — complete consecration, oneness of purpose. It is illustrated to-day in the success which men of the world make by throwing all the energies of their being into one thing. The success which they achieve, however, is only temporal, can not endure; whereas the success which comes to an individual through consecration and prayer, having in it the element of the divine, carries beyond death and the grave, and is perpetuated through eternity.

The Christian has one business set before him, the business of advancing God’s kingdom in the earth. Our talents are not too many or our lives too important

to give all into that business; and when that is done, God will crown that gift, that consecration, that concentration of purpose, with a power that will achieve mightily for him. “Forgetting those things which are behind [the things of this world], and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” There was no half-hearted service about that, and no half-hearted servant will ever accomplish the work which Paul did. The secret of the whole matter is consecration and prayer. That will make the Christian powerful for God, because only to such can God entrust his power. If we are to be forceful for God, we must consecrate our lives unreservedly to his service and be earnest and constant in prayer. C. M. S.