“Will you please tell me in a word,” said a Christian woman to a minister, “what your idea of praying the prayer of consecration?” Holding out a blank sheet of paper the pastor replied, “It is to sign your name at the bottom of this blank sheet and to let God fill it in as He will.”¹ This is an excellent illustration of what consecration is. Today’s Light on Life focus is this area of consecrating yourself to the will of God and a type of prayer that you can pray in this area.

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Episode Resources

You can find more information on the subject of ‘Who Jesus Is’ by clicking on the links above.

1. Encountering Jesus in Your Everyday Life.
2. #S4-005: What to Do When Your Family Thinks Your Nuts about Jesus [Podcast] 
3. #S3-030: Do You Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus? [Podcast]
4. #S1-033: Three Things Jesus Did that You Can Do [Podcast]
5. #S1-020: What Happens When You Encounter Jesus? [Podcast]
6. #S5-010: Just Who Is Jesus to You? [Podcast]
7. #S5-011: The Zoe Life of God in the Person of Jesus [Podcast]
8. #S5-012: Seven Witnesses to the Mission of Jesus [Podcast]

About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 42 years ago. He has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 38 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

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Podcast Notes

Luke 22:41–42 (NKJV) — 41 And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”

• Have you ever heard anyone pray a prayer unto God and somewhere in the prayer say these words, ‘Lord if it be thy will?’
• So here they are, they need healing in their body, and they tell God about their need, and they are passionate in describing the problem, and they try to express confidence in God over the problem, and then they end that prayer with the words, ‘Lord if it be thy will?’
• And, no matter what area they are praying about, they are so careful not to get crosswise with God’s will that they utter those words ‘Lord do so and so for me or for someone they love if it is your will.’
• These prayers, though they are sincere, will for the most part not get the job done.
• Why won’t it work?
• How come Jesus prayed this prayer and used those words?
• We are going to take a look at some of this today.

Mixing the Rules of Prayer

• So, let’s jump into our primary text.

Ephesians 6:18 (NKJV) — 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.

• Notice the words ‘all prayer’ in the front part of verse 18.
• ‘All prayer’ means all kinds of prayer.
• The TNIV reflects this in its translation.

Ephesians 6:18 (TNIV) — 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

• Pray on ‘all occasions’ with ‘all kinds’ of prayer.
• Different occasions require different kinds of prayer.
• So, let’s look at Jesus praying in Luke 22.
• Look closely at the occasion on which Jesus prayed this prayer.

Jesus Consecration in the Garden of Gethsemane

• Jesus is facing the cross.
• In the scriptures, Jesus called this moment, ‘His hour.’

John 13:1 (NKJV) — 1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

• Jesus was a man, not a machine.
• He was man anointed supremely by the Spirit of God.
• Jesus was 100% God and 100% man.
• In identity, He was God.
• In ability, He was a man.
• Now as a man, there were times when He had trouble with His soul.
• One of those times occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was confronted with His impending death.
• At that moment, Jesus prayed a prayer about the will of God for His life.
• He asked the Lord would it be possible to make a change to the plan.
• That’s where ‘if it be thy will’ comes in.
• But, Jesus said something else to His Father.
• He said, ‘nevertheless not my will but yours be done.’
• Jesus didn’t want to go forward with the plan anymore.
• But He didn’t just walk off and quit.
• Aren’t you glad that He didn’t?
• Instead, He yielded Himself to the will of God.

Yielding to God’s Will Is Consecration Praying

• This kind of praying is called dedication praying or consecration praying.
• It’s a kind of prayer where you commit your life to God.
• With this type of prayer, and you remember there are different kinds, you tell God what you are willing to do for Him.
• You share with the Lord how far you are willing to go to serve Him.
• The Lord wants to hear this from you.
• If you desire to be used by Him, the Lord wants to know.
• If you are sincere in serving the Lord, tell Him that.
• You can call this kind of praying, the Prayer of Consecration or the Prayer of Dedication.
• You can and should pray these kinds of prayers often.

An Example of Consecration

• Recently, I was reading an autobiography by Billy Graham.
• In many places throughout the book, he highlights the dedication of people who pressed to hear the Word of God.
• During one campaign in India, Graham says the following.

Next morning, as I looked down from the platform, I saw that many of the people were attired in tribal dress. On their faces they wore different colors, and in their hands they carried spears and guns. Some of them, from as far away as Nepal and China, had walked for two weeks to hear me interpreted in perhaps fourteen, perhaps as many as seventeen, languages.

• It’s a long day when you stand and listen to the gospel interpreted in seventeen languages.
• How many hours would you stand to listen to one gospel message?
• Now, you have to be watchful in these areas because sometimes we mouth things that sound good to us at the time, but we don’t mean.
• For example, do you think it’s right to tell the Lord that you will do anything for Him and then get upset when the Sunday service goes ten minutes long?
• Your actions have to be in line with your words.
• If you tell the Lord you are willing to do anything, and the Pastor of your church asks for volunteers, and you turn away from that because you don’t feel like doing it, how’s your consecration?

Rules for the Prayer of Consecration

• So, the thing to understand about this type of prayer is that you are petitioning God about an area that you have no Bible verse for.
• There was no promise in the Bible that Jesus brought before His Father God in the Garden concerning ‘the cup passing from Him.’
• What Jesus asked the Father to do was something specific about His mission for Him.
• That’s the reason why there’s an ‘if it be thy will.’
• And that’s also the reason you can’t tag this on a prayer for your needs because there is a Bible promise for them.
• And, once you have His promise, you have His will.
• So, some people mix these rules of prayer up.
• They mix the prayer of faith with the prayer of consecration, and they add an ‘if it be thy will’ to praying about healing for example.
• And so, they will pray, ‘Lord heal me if it be thy will.’
• And, they mess it all up and don’t get results they are looking for.
• Stating this a different way, you can’t pray ‘if it be thy will’ if it is already will as stated in the Bible.
• You can’t pray, ‘Lord let me commit adultery with this women if it be thy will.’
• It’s not His will; it’s a sin.
• Now, that’s a silly illustration, but you get the point.
• So, don’t mix the rules up.

The Necessity of Consecration in Following God’s Will

• Following God’s plan for your life should be what you are all about.
• Consecration is a characteristic of the Christian.
• Is it right for the adherents of false religion to be more consecrated to error than you are to the truth of God’s Word?
• Faithful followers of Jesus are those who have the will of God of primary importance in their lives.
• Is that one of your core values?
• Asking the question, “What does God want me to do here,” is something that should characterize us any major decision that we have to make.
• It should be a compelling motive for all of our actions.
• Putting the Kingdom first, and understanding what we are supposed to be doing relative to that Kingdom is priority one.

Consecration to God Is a Delight Not a Burden

• Don’t over-spiritualize consecration.
• Consecration is not a point of sadness.
• You see some people who are ‘trying to be spiritual’, and they have such long faces.
• They try to impress with the burden of it all.
• And they always talk about how hard it is.
• At times, it is hard.
• Nothing good ever comes easy.
• But, it’s not a burden to serve the Lord.
• It’s a privilege and an opportunity.
• And yet, it’s something even more.

Psalm 40:8 (NKJV) — 8 I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.”

• Does this verse describe you today?
• Do you delight to do God’s will or is it a drudgery?

Consecration and Africa

• Many are fearful of following His will.
• They think maybe God might ask them to do something kind of far out, like pack up everything and go to Africa.
• I had that fear many years ago.
• At one point, I kept sensing Africa in my heart and wasn’t very comfortable with that.
• That sense in my heart wouldn’t go, and I kept wrestling with it.
• Finally, I said to the Lord,

I don’t know about this Africa thing. I don’t know how I could pull that off but I know that the Holy Spirit in my spirit knows and so okay, if you want me to go, I’ll go.

• Immediately the Lord spoke up inside of me and said, ‘I don’t want you to go, I just wanted to see if you were willing to go.’
• You see that’s part of the Prayer of Consecration, telling God that you are willing.

Jesus Consecration to God

• At one point in Jesus ministry, the disciples urged Jesus to eat.
• He was so busy ministering to people.
• Jesus had just finished ministering to the woman at the well.

John 4:31–34 (NKJV) — 31 In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But He said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” 33 Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.

• Food sustains you.
• It gives you energy and refreshment.
• That’s what doing the will of God did for Jesus, it sustained Him.
• And, that’s what doing His will can accomplish for you.
• It should be what sustains you.

Jesus Parable about Doing God’s Will

Luke 12:41–48 (NKJV) — 41 Then Peter said to Him, “Lord, do You speak this parable only to us, or to all people?” 42 And the Lord said, “Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his master will make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season?

The Blessing Goes to the Doers

43 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 44 Truly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all that he has. 45 But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, 46 the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.

The Beating Goes to the Non-Doers

47 And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. 48 But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.

Blessing or Beating Which Do You Choose?

• What are the main points of this parable?
• You are blessed if you are doing what your Master has asked you to do.
• If you say, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal to do God’s will, I’m going to do what I want to do. I need some ‘me’ time anyway,’ what’s the result of that?
• Well the Lord Jesus Christ tells you what the end of that is.
• He said, ‘That servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.’
• What does it mean, ‘Getting a beating?’
• I don’t know, but I don’t want any part of that getting a beating business.
• If you know the will of God and you don’t do it or prepare yourself to do it that translates to many stripes or severe punishment.
• If you don’t know His will because you didn’t the time to ask, seek, and knock, Jesus said you would also get a beating but with fewer stripes.
• The key is not to get a whipping at all.
• Take the time to know his will and then do it.

Consecration to the Lordship of Jesus Is Crucial

• Confessing Jesus as Lord is how you came to Jesus in the first place.

Romans 10:9 (NKJV) — 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

• So saying that Jesus is your Lord, that he is your Master, that He is the one who has a right to tell you what you should do, and then not letting Him do it is hypocritical.
• Jesus addressed this in Luke six.

Luke 6:46–49 (NKJV) — 46 “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say? 47 Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. 49 But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.”

• Again, this leads us to another point in the area of consecration.
• It’s vital to be in the habit of obeying the written Word of God.
• Some hear Jesus sayings and don’t do them but yet yearn to do such a big spectacular thing for God.
• Do the simple stuff first, and then you’ll be ready for something else from His very hand.

Consecration Means Agreeing with Your Place in the Body

1 Corinthians 12:18 (NKJV) — 18 But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.

• God has set the members each one of them according to His pleasure.
• That means that there are no unused members of the Body.
• There is a plan and purpose for every member of the Body of Christ.
• Your job is to find it.
• You must find your place and fill it.
• Remember that place that God has for you is not self-assumed.
• You don’t get to pick it.
• What you do get to do is tell the Lord that you will do it.
• That’s the Prayer of Consecration.
• How are you going to find it out His will?
• You are going to so do it by a careful, consecrated and prayerful lifestyle.
• Now, you can choose not to live this way.

Proverbs 19:21 (NKJV) — 21 There are many plans in a man’s heart, Nevertheless the LORD’s counsel—that will stand.

• You have your own will.
• You can do your own plan.
• Jesus had His own will.
• Look what he did with His.

John 6:38 (NKJV) — 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

• Jesus laid down His will and took up the Father’s will.
• What Jesus did, you can do.
• You can save yourself a lot of heartache and difficulty in life but just consecrating yourself to God’s idea for your life.

Your Plan Versus God’s Plan

• Take a look at some men in the Bible who had their plan.

James 4:13–17 (NKJV) — 13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; 14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” 16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

You Don’t Have Time to Do Your Own Thing

• The commitment that these men made was to make money for the space of one year.
• They decided that they were going to take a year off from following God’s plan for their life.
• These men were going to do their own thing.
• You know another example of ‘me time.’
• What was the response of the Holy Ghost to this?
• Here is what He thought about this.
• He said, ‘What is your life; it’s a puff of smoke.’
• What is the Spirit of God saying?
• He is saying that you don’t have the time that you think that you have for doing your own thing.
• The emphasis in this passage of scripture is following the will of God for your life.
• ‘We ought to say if the Lord will, we will do this or that.’
• What if He doesn’t say?
• Then, we shouldn’t do.
• Now, if we ought to say if the Lord will we will do this or that, then we surely ought to pray that also.
• Anything short of this is evil according to the Bible.
• So do the right thing you should do and keep from evil and sin.
• Find out the Lord’s will instead of executing your own.

Paul’s Consecration to the Will of God

With the Ephesian Believers

Acts 18:21 (NKJV) — 21 but took leave of them, saying, “I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem; but I will return again to you, God willing.” And he sailed from Ephesus.

• Paul said these words to the Ephesians while he was there with them.
• He said he would make a return visit back to Ephesus if it were God’s will.
• That means he prayed about that.
• It means he yielded himself to God’s will if the answer was no.
• That means he prayed an ‘if it be thy will kind of prayer.’
• It’s not the only time Paul prayed the Prayer of Consecration.

With the Roman Believers

Romans 1:10 (NKJV) — 10 making request if, by some means, now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you.

• Paul had the same conversation with God about the Roman believers.
• He wanted to come to Rome.
• He told those believers that in the first part of his letter to them and he mentioned it again at the end.

Romans 15:30–32 (NKJV) — 30 Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me, 31 that I may be delivered from those in Judea who do not believe, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, 32 that I may come to you with joy by the will of God, and may be refreshed together with you.

With the Corinthian Believers

• Paul’s manner of life in this area was the same with the Corinthian believers.

1 Corinthians 4:19 (NKJV) — 19 But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power.

• And again in chapter sixteen.

1 Corinthians 16:7 (NKJV) — 7 For I do not wish to see you now on the way; but I hope to stay a while with you, if the Lord permits.

• Move on down to the book of Hebrews.

Hebrews 6:1–3 (NKJV) — 1 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits.

• So, Paul prayed about his messages and what He taught.
• He wanted to take the believers in Hebrews beyond the elementary teachings of Christ.
• But, he said he would only do that if the Lord permits, that is, if it was the will of God.
• That means he prayed about it.
• It implies that he had no mind of his own.
• With all of these churches and all of these believers, it is evident that Paul prayed the Prayer of Consecration.

The Great Need for the Revelation of God in the Church

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