Independence Day

I have been doing a Bible study about the meaning of Christian Consecration this week and realised that the Holy Spirit was asking me to look more closely at my values and invite Him to show me how to really live them. It is easy to write down ' humility, love, courage, integrity, self-discipline' as character traits/ virtues to develop but in practice, making these virtues an integral part of who I am and what I do at all times, in all situations requires God's grace.
I never realised that there are many times when we have to ask the Father for the grace to accomplish something. we have to come before Him, get down on our knees, confess our sins or weaknesses and earnestly pray for Him to come in and "invade" a situation. It has been a while since I got down on my knees and confessed that I cannot do what He asks of me on my own.
A 30-day period of consecrated fasting and prayer was humanly impossible for me to even contemplate, never mind attempt. The devil immediately reminded me of how badly I failed during the 21-day fast at Living Faith church to loosen the bondage in Michael and Uriah's lives. The first week wasn't too bad, though I cheated once or twice, but by the second week, I realised I might as well stop pretending I was committed to this fast and prepare myself better for the next one. As I studied all the scriptures related to consecration and read Bible study notes on the topic, I realised that it is one of those principles that falls into the category I now call The Divine Exchange. Ours is God of relationship. Almsot everything that God requires us to observe or submit to has as its ultimate purpose a deeper, more intimate relationship with Him. We all know that when we become born-again we are "set apart" (this is the most common definition of consecration). But why does God set us apart from the rest of the world? I had never really given any serious thought to this. Obviously, on a superficial level, being consecrated for Christ flows from God's love for us and ensures that we are protected from the temptations that ensnare those who belong to the world. But when we study the scriptures that describe this consecration in more detail, we realise that we have been called, sanctified and justified for a divine purpose. What is that divine purpose?
Essentially, the purpose of consecration is building the Kingdom of God on earth. Most Christians don't take salvation much further than being baptised into the Body of Christ. as Pastor Chrane of 3-C Ministries pointed out, most of us never get past the commandment "Go and make disciples of all nations" because we have a problem with the word "Go". To go anywhere necessarily means moving out of our comfort zone, facing periods of uncertainty and instability and being prepared to "rough it" for a while as we learn to cross the wilderness. All the great journey stories of the Bible reveal God's pattern of taking His people from the land they knew and had always lived in to "a land that He shows [them]". It is how we respond to and handle different aspects of this journey that we truly become consecrated.

This is a teaching I will be developing over the next couple of months and would be grateful for any comments or insights to add to this blog. Today is Independence day in Lesotho and I am rushing off to a festival in the town of Morija, which the kings of old and 19th Century missioanries consecrated to the training of evangelists and clergymen. There is signifinace in today's celebration which I have not quite grasped yet- I will be sharing my experience of this 2-day festival in my next entry.