Consecration of Life II

H. G. Bishop Youssef

Today I am going to discuss three main issues concerning the consecration of Life.

1. Is it a Calling or a Self-choice (or desire): Well, it is both, you have to desire and God will call you. Let me give you an example, if you are a teacher and want to choose students to send to represent the school in a national competition, whom will you choose? You are going to choose the brightest, the smartest and the highly achieving students. In a way you are choosing; but actually they make you choose them due to their hard work and commitment.

This is the way we should understand God’s calling. This is called the foreknowledge of God; and based on it God will call you to ministry or life of consecration. God foreknows who you will be, and based on this knowledge He will call you.

Consecration is a mixture between God’s calling and personal desire; as this desire will make one a candidate for God’s calling. Yes, it is a calling because our Lord Jesus Christ told His disciples: “you did not choose me but I chose you”. I want you to pray and ask God to enlighten your way and make you realize His calling in your heart. Your prayer should be, “Show me the way I should walk” Ps 127. You have to pray this prayer every day and ask God to show you the way.

Ask the people who have consecrated their life to God, they will tell you that God has made His voice very clear to them, and that they are completely sure about it. He caused them to listen to His voice through many mediums (His word, a sermon, father of confession or a spiritual guidance) “my sheep knows my voice”.

2. Financial Issues: Another concern regarding the life of consecration is the financial needs of either the ministry or the person himself. We always worry about how to support the ministry and the first question is usually how to raise funds. However, this is contrary to what the Lord did when he sent His twelve disciples. He instructed them not to carry any silver or gold, but to rely on Him only. When they came back, He asked them if they had lacked any thing and their answer was “we did not need anything.” So, when we start to ask these questions about financial support, we are not relying on the Lord but on ourselves.

Well, if you ask me how to support a ministry financially; my answer will be, “I do not know ’How’”. But I know one thing for sure that when the Lord sent His disciples they did not need anything. When Peter and John entered the temple and found the beggar they did not have silver or gold to give him; but they had the powerful name of Jesus Christ which had caused the paralyzed beggar to jump up and be healed. When St. Mark came to Egypt to evangelize, what was his fund raising campaign? None, whatsoever. However, he was able to evangelize the whole country; because he relied on the Lord alone.

When the rich man came to Jesus asking Him, “what can I do to inherit the eternal Life?” Jesus did not tell him to bring all his money for the purpose of spreading the gospel; which might not be a bad idea anyway. But you know the story, the Lord Jesus told him to go and sell every thing and come and follow Him. This was the criterion, why? It is because the glory should go to God; not to the money. The Lord Jesus insists that we go without any thing in order to experience the abundance of God and give Him the glory. This is why the Levites, who were consecrated to the Lord, did not have a share of the Promised Land; because their portion was the Lord.

This is a very important principle in the life of consecrated people. God is the source of their riches. It is essential to depend on the Lord because He is able to satisfy all our needs.

So, we should not worry about the money, God will take care of it in a miraculous way.

3. Ability and Qualifications: The best satisfying response to this concern is Moses. When God called him from the burning bush, he started to give God a list of excuses and God refuted them all, and when Mousse did not find any thing to say, he told the Lord that he was not fit for that ministry and that He should find someone else. Is that the case with us when we feel that the calling requires a great sacrifice from us, so we present a list of excuses such as “I am young, old, can’t speak, shy, or lack knowledge”? The Devil will try to convince you of these excuses and make you believe that you are not qualified.

I want to tell you one fact about ministering. We do not do anything, we just watch! It is God who does ALL the work and in His love He summoned us as co-worker. We are just tools in His hand. God does not want qualified people. He wants the people who consider themselves foolish and depend on Him. However, this is not against being trained in a Theological Seminary or against degrees and knowledge, but we should not rely totally on such things.

There are many other issues concerning Consecration of life; but the main three ones are: The Calling, the financial support, and the qualifications.

The last point I want to make is the possibility of partial consecration: one year, six months, or even part of a week or day. I would like to see some of our youth willing to consecrate one year after graduation to serve the church.

At any level you are called as a Christian to consecrate part of your time to God. Do not say “I do not have time” because that means you are putting God at the end of your list, after work, duties, fun and entertainment.

Remember that the word consecration means it is set aside for the Lord and it can not be used for any thing else. So, when you consecrate this time to God you cannot use it for anything else. I am sure if you consecrate even portion of the day for the Lord, He will use it to do miracles; and bring many people to His Love and Knowledge.

Now, I would like you to put every word you have heard and learned here to work, so we can bring everyone to the Lord to be one flock under One Shepherd. Glory be to God. Amen