Consecration
A wise teacher was once trying to explain to a physician the meaning and importance of consecration to God. The physician seemed incapable of understanding it. Finally the teacher said, “Suppose a person with a certain fatal disease comes to you. You have the power and knowledge to save this person. You have just the right remedy. You offer the patient the one prescription that will make him whole again. The patient, however, replies, ‘I will follow your
directions when I find them to be traditionally true and when they make some sense to me, but if they don't, I’ll rely on my own judgment.’ What would you do?”
“Do!” was the indignant reply, “I would refuse to accept such a patient. I could do nothing for such a person unless that person put their entire case into my hands and obeyed my directions implicitly.”
“Then faith in you as the doctor and obedience to your orders would be absolutely essential to a patient who wants to be cured?”
“Absolutely!”
“And that dear doctor,” replied the teacher, “is consecration.”
To obey God implicitly and follow His is the one and only way to find a cure for sin. Some are willing to take part of what God requires for salvation, but not all. Jesus tells us, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4)” — not just things that make sense to us or that accord with our traditional views.