Encountering God #15: Consecration Power
People are searching for supernatural power!
Fallen man’s desire is to “be like God.”
You don’t have to look much further than your television screen to find such titles as Heroes, Spiderman and Fantastic Four – where ordinary people possess superpowers.
Or on the other side of the coin – shows like Medium, Moonlight, and others where people get occult power. Witchcraft, for example, is the practice of attempting to control your environment (read circumstances) through the use of spells, potions, curses, etc.
My Sister in Law who is here today, Debbie (wave!), manned an undercover Christian booth at an Occult/Psychic Fair. People flock to these places in search of power. Many noticed what they described as an “aura of power” coming from Debbie’s table. They didn’t know why. It gave them an opportunity to share the truth of Jesus Christ vs. the counterfeit of the Occult.
Why this fascination with supernatural power? I think it is ingrained in us. God created us to connect with Him, to encounter Him. He desires us to experience His power through a dependent relationship with Him.
Today, I am going to finish our story of Jacob and his encounters with God…and show how God empowered Jacob with supernatural power. It is a New Testament promise for you and I, and we can learn a valuable lesson from Jacob today.
Review of Jacob
Remember, Jacob as he comes to the end of himself on the way to meet his estranged and angry brother? He is broken and seeks God with his whole heart until God changes his heart. He is as much “born again” as anyone in the Old Testament could be.
The story continues to where Esau receives his brother and they embrace. Peace is made. And Jacob settles at a town called Shechem. However, trouble is not far from him, as one of his daughters, Dinah, is date-raped by one of the men in the village who had a crush on her. Two of Jacob’s sons (and Dinah’s brothers, Simeon and Levi) offered to let her marry the young man on the condition that all the men of the village be circumcised. This is a painful surgery to do to an adult male. While they are still healing, Simeon and Levi kill all of the men of the village, including the rapist. This is where our story will pick up today:
Gen. 34:30-31 “Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have brought trouble on me by making me odious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and my men being few in number, they will gather together against me and attack me and I will be destroyed, I and my household." 31 But they said, "Should he treat our sister as a harlot?"
Jacob knows the tribal customs of the people of the area. Everyone is related to some degree, and he knows that once the word gets out that Jacob’s son’s killed the residents of Shechem, that others in the land would rise up and seek revenge. He is frustrated and frightened. We don’t know whether he sought out God as a result, but we do know that God told him what to do next.
Genesis 35:1-7 Then God said to Jacob, "Arise, go up to Bethel and live there, and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau." 2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Put away the foreign gods which are among you, and purify yourselves and change your garments; 3 and let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone." 4 So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods which they had and the rings which were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak which was near Shechem. 5 As they journeyed, there was a great terror upon the cities which were around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. 6 So Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. 7 He built an altar there, and called the place El-Bethel, because there God had revealed Himself to him when he fled from his brother.
Jacob has yet another “encounter with God.”
Jacob is told by God to go back to the place where he had first had a dream-encounter with God.
This was the place that Jacob had promised to come back to build an altar, and to this point, had not returned.
Instead, Jacob had settled in Shechem, and he and his family had trouble with the people who lived there.
It almost makes you wonder what the price was of settling in Shechem instead of fulfilling his vow at Bethel.
The present command: Then God said to Jacob, "Arise, go up to Bethel, and live there; and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau." Gen 35:1
This verse should speak to every one of us, regardless of where we are in life. From time to time, God calls us to return to our place of encounter, to return to our place of dedication, to return (at least in our memories) to the place and time that we made a commitment to Him.
These are important chapters in our lives. They are markers to our journey, signposts that help keep us on track and reminders of Whom we serve and why.
Jacob tells his family and those with him to “put away their foreign gods….”
This is Jacob’s response to this latest encounter with God, as well as his preparation for his upcoming act of worship and building of an altar to God at Bethel.
In his previous encounter, God got Jacob’s heart. Here at the Tree of Shechem, God is getting Jacob’s consecration.
Consecration is the act of setting apart, or dedicating yourself to God.
It is what God later required priests of the temple to do with sacred objects, to “consecrate them” so that they could be used SOLELY for God’s purposes.
Consecration is the total dedication of all you are and all you have and all you will become to God. True and total consecration holds nothing back. It is total and absolute surrender.
It is what Jesus meant when He called his disciples and told them to “Come and follow me.”
It is what Jesus’ disciples did…they left everything and followed Him. They were totally consecrated, dedicated to following Him.
It is what Paul meant when in Romans 12:1-2 he said, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…”
Consecration is both the result and the evidence of sustained and repeated life changing encounters with God.
What does this mean for us?
It means that we cannot make progress in our walk with God until we willingly lay aside anything in our lives that the Bible or Holy Spirit has shown us is offensive to God.
It may be something different for each one of us, but the point is that we cannot move forward in our spiritual life without leaving something behind!
I’d like you to observe something:
How could Jacob’s kids keep foreign gods?
Because their mom did!
Remember, Rachel stole the household idols of her father (Genesis 31:19).
No matter how hard we try to teach our children godly conduct, they will still do what we do!
Jacob’s family only got right with God after Jacob himself did.
This shows us the tremendous leadership role men have within the family.
A man who is resisting God will see the same effect in his children.
But a man who gets right with God will see the effect in his family, also.
Three Actions that led to their consecration:
Put away your idols.
Ear-rings were certainly worn as amulets and charms, first consecrated to some god, or formed under some constellation, on which magical characters and images were drawn
Jacob’s sons most likely took some with the plunder from their slaughter of the men of Shechem which may have been in the form of idols of gold and silver. They had to part with their hard earned plunder.
Can a Christian have idols? Yes!
Anything that is in first place in your life other than Jesus Christ is an idol.
Job, family, hobbies, television, recreation, hunting, school, quest for success, grades, obsession with riches or security?
What is competing with Christ for the affections and attention of your heart?
Purify yourselves (wash yourselves)
In the Old Testament, washing or bathing was a preliminary act done before engaging in worship. It was also symbolic of cleansing from sin.
Ephesians 5:24 “…just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.
The word of God is a cleansing tool. Our sin is exposed when we read the Word of God and we are given the opportunity to yield to God!
Are you in the habit of daily and regularly confessing your sin before God? Or do you store them up and hide them?
Change your garments.(or clothing)
Garments represent your life and your works. With Jacob and his family, their old clothes represented the life that they had lived up to this point in Shechem.
All of that would now change.
They would leave the old behind and put on the new.
Before we knew Christ, our works were called “filthy rags” because they were our own works, our own efforts. Compared to Christ, our works were nothing more than filthy garments.
We are called to put on the “righteousness of Christ.”
We are also told to put aside our former way of life, our former way of thinking about the world.
The garments we must part ways with is our past.
2 Cor 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
The question we all must answer is, what spiritual clothing are we wearing? Are we living like the old man or the new?
Results of Consecration: POWER
God puts the fear of God on the folks who live in the area around Shechem. Why? Because Jacob and his entire household consecrated themselves to God. They were sold out to God alone.
This is a principle demonstrated time and again in the bible.
Samson (Nazarite consecration)
Samuel (consecrated from birth)
John the Baptist (consecrated from his mother’s womb)
Each of these (and others) had the unmistakable power of God at work in their lives and affected their entire generation and culture as a result.
Sadly, many modern Christians believe that since they are Christians, because they have asked Jesus Christ to be their Savior, that they should automatically have Holy Spirit power and are disappointed when they are no more successful" than their worldly friends.
The truth is that many Christians are in fact powerless.
Corrie Ten Boom said that “God is more grieved by powerless Christians than by powerful atheists!”
What is wrong with so many of us? Is God at fault?
We know that Power is promised to every believer.
Acts 1:8 “but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you”
We know that Power is provided to every believer in the Holy Spirit.
Luke 10:19 "Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.
In the first century, the unmistakeable power of God was at work in the lives of ordinary Christians.
So why do Christians of today so often lack spiritual and supernatural power?
Because there is no consecration.
We think that we can live as we wish, do as we please during the week, and show up to Church on Sunday and somehow God will bless us and use us. WRONG.
If there is no consecration, “no exclusivity in our lives to live and love God” then we will not experience the power of God.
Illustration: Back in the days when deep sea divers wore the big bulky suits and the big helmets…surely you have seen pictures of them? They had long hoses connected to the boat or ship above that pumped life giving air into their helmets. As long as the air was flowing the diver was safe. The divers were taught one basic principle: "DON’T STAND ON YOUR OWN AIRHOSE!"
Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it? When one of them would stop getting air, they would panic and they wouldn’t see that their motions had led them to accidently step on their own airhose. In other words, by their inattention, they were killing themselves!
Sadly, too many believers are standing on their own spiritual air hose by failing to live in the power of the Holy Spirit because they are living for themselves.
When you live for yourself, you are standing on your spiritual airhose.
They have failed to become consecrated to God and God alone.
They believe that they can live for themselves and for God. But there is no such plan in the bible.
Let me try to briefly give you some steps to consecration:
Empty ourselves
Hebrews 12:1 "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us"
Emptying ourselves means to lay aside every obstacle, every idol, every self-oriented and self-centered goal and ambition for Jesus Christ.
L. Moody said, "I believe firmly that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride and selfishness and ambition and everything that is contrary to God’s law, the Holy Spirit will fill every corner of our hearts. But if we are full of pride and conceit and ambition and the world, there is no room for the Spirit of God. We must be emptied before we can be filled."
The apostle Paul writes in Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
This is the key to the consecrated life: Not living for me any longer.
Yield ourselves
Ephesians 5:18 "Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, let the Holy Spirit fill and control you.
When you are driving, what does it mean when you come to a yield sign? It means to defer, to give the right of way, the control to the other drivers. It means that you don’t take the right of way but instead give it to another.
Similarly, to yield to God means to walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh.
It means to let God tell you what to do and not to let your appetites tell you.
It means to look to God first for direction instead of deciding it for yourself.
To yield means to be abandoned to God’s will.
If you say you are filled with the Spirit, your life ought to resemble the leadership of the Spirit of God and not your own flesh.
Galatians 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
In other words, do as the Spirit tells you and not as your flesh desires.
You enable or limit the working of God in and through you by the degree of your yieldedness to the Spirit.
To yield means you must also know the will of God, and the voice of the Spirit. You cannot yield if you aren’t listening.
You must have a quiet time with God daily, you must read your bible and you must pray.
Without a quiet time with God you will be powerless! You will be stepping on your air hose! You will be suffocating in your walk with God. You will, I guarantee it, be powerless. You will look like a dead Christian, one without air. Doesn’t our world have enough of them already?
Commit ourselves
Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality.
It is the words that speak of your intentions and the actions which speak louder than words.
Commitment turns God’s promises into power in our lives.
That is how consecration translates into supernatural power.
Examples of Commitment:
Commitment is making the time when there is none.
Commitment is what it means to come through time after time, year after year.
Commitment is the stuff character is made of; the power to change the face of things.
Today, Christianity seems to be less a matter of commitment and more a matter of convenience.
To be committed to God 99% is 1% too short.
God hasn’t called us to be partially committed to Him; He has called us to be fully committed to Him. God isn’t interested in something called our spiritual lives; He’s just interested in our lives. – Jason Hill
When you commit yourself, when you yield yourself, when you empty yourself, you become a power tool in God’s hand.
It is God’s plan and desire that men and women will change the world by living exclusively for Him. It is His desire, plan and promise that His power will accompany them to change the world.
Consecration is not a feeling, it is not an act of your flesh. It is surrendering to be used exclusively for the purposes of God. Is God touching your heart today? Will you surrender all to Him?
