"His Already"

 

    I recently ran into a very busy young man whom I've known for several years.  He's a husband, father, surgeon, and one of those people that you know puts his all into everything he does.

 

    On the day I saw Ryan, he told me he had offered in the morning a prayer of consecration and devotion.  "Lord, everything I am and everything I have belongs to You."  Thats's a wonderful thing to say to God, of course, and every believer should dedicate themselves accordingly.  As he prayed, however, Ryan said he realized that he really wasn't giving anything to God by his offering.  "It struck me that it's all His already, including me, my family, my possessions, my all.  I simply affirmed the truth of the matter, and responded accordingly."

 

    Ryan is absolutely correct.

 

    "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein" (Psalm 24:1).

    "Ye are bought with a price" (I Corinthians 6:20).

   

    What do you give to the person who has everything, including yourself and everything you possess?  The answer is acknowledgement, that is, you recognize, accept and bow to the truth of your life, being and existence.  As I told Ryan, consecration to God by born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ involves our conscious acquiescence to reality.  We don't make His ownership true by our presentation and yielding, but rather determine to "walk in the light as He is in the light" (I John 1:7).  Or, as the Apostle Paul commanded, "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:25).

 

   Interestingly, God's possessions include devils and unbelieving humans.  All are His, but the hearts and minds of both races are constituted by their Creator to decisively acknowledge the Truth in order for its fullness to be experienced and expressed.  Indeed, those who eternally perish in the lake of fire will do so as the possessions of God.  His presence will not be known, and alienation from His life will characterize a terrible existence of darkness and keen agony.  Nevertheless, all will be His and all will know that they are His (perhaps a particularly mournful pain for those forever lost).

 

    For the believer, eternity promises joys beyond measure as we perfectly realize and continually affirm that God made us for Himself.  Remembering His character of unselfish love, humility and faithfulness assures us that belonging to the Lord Jesus - and knowing it - envisages a glorious forever of our Lord's determination to immerse His own with the loving and infinite grace of His heart...

 

"But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."

(Ephesians 2:4-7)