Consecration is much more than a life of service; it is a life of personal holiness.  It is that which brings spiritual power into our hearts.  It is a life which recognizes God, and a life given up to prayer.

Full consecration is the highest type of a Christian life.  It is the one thing which every believer should aim for.  Never should we be content until we are fully, entirely the Lord's by our own consent.

Consecration is the voluntary set dedication of ourselves to God, an offering made without any reservation whatsoever.  It is the setting apart of all we are, all we have, and all we expect to have or be, to God first of all.  It is a separation of ourselves to God, a devoting of all that we are or have to a sacred use.  Consecration has a sacred nature and is devoted to holy ends.  It is the voluntary putting of ourselves into God's hands to be used sacredly, holily, with sanctifying ends in view.

Consecration is not so much the setting ourselves apart from sinful things, but rather it is the separation from worldly, secular and even legitimate things if they come in conflict with God's plans.  It is the devoting of all we have to God for His own specific use.

The consecration which meets God's demands nd which He accepts is to be full, complete, with no mental reservations, nothing withheld.  It involves our whole being, all we have and all that we are.  Everything is definitely and voluntarily placed in God's hands for His supreme use.

Consecration is not all there is in holiness.  Consecration is the human side of holiness.  It is self-sanctification.  Sanctification or holiness in its truest and highest sense is divine, the act of the Holy Spirit working in the heart, making it clean and putting in a higher degree of the fruits of the Spirit.

Moses clearly distinguishes the difference in Leviticus where he shows the human and the divine side of sanctification or holiness:  "Sanctify yourselves, therefore, and be ye holy, for I am the Lord your God.  And ye shall keep my statures and do them; I am the Lord which sanctify you." Lev. 20:7

Here we are to sanctify ourselves, and then in the next word we are taught that it is the Lord which sanctifies us.

Consecration being the intelligent, voluntary act of the believer, this act is the direct result to praying.  Prayerlessness and consecration have nothing whatsoever in common.  A life of prayer naturally leads up to full consecration.  In fact, a life of prayer is satisfied with nothing else but an entire dedication of ourselves to God.  Consecration fully recognizes God's ownership of us.

Paul said it well in I Corinthians 6:20  "Ye are not your own.  For ye are bought with a price.  Therefore, glorify God in your body and spirit, which are God's."

Consecration is really the setting apart of our lives to a life of prayer.  It means not only to pray, but to pray habitually and to pray more effectually.  God cannot deny the request of a person who has renounced all claims to himself, and who has wholly dedicated himself to God and His service.  This act of consecration puts us 'on praying ground and pleading terms' with God.  It puts us in reach of God in prayer.  It places us where we can get hold of God, and we can influence God to do things which He would not otherwise do.  Consecration brings answers to prayer.  God can depend on the consecrated person.  God can afford to commit Himself in prayer to those who have fully committed themselves to God.  Whoever gives all to God will get all from God.  Having given all to God, he can claim all that God has for him.
 

Father, I thank You that the communication of my faith becomes effectual by acknowledging that every good thing which is in me is from Jesus who lives big in me.  I hear the voice of the Good Shepherd.  I hear my Father's voice, and the voice of a stranger I will not follow.  Father, I believe in my heart and say with my mouth that this day the will be God is done in my life.  I walk in a manner worthy of You Lord, fully pleasing to You and desiring to please You in all things, bearing fruit in every good work.  I roll my works onto You Lord.  You make my thought agreeable to Your will so that my plans are established and succeed.  You direct my steps and make them sure.  Rather, You have destined and appointed me to become better and more intimately acquainted with Your will.  I thank You Father, for the Holy Spirit who abides permanently in me and who guides me into all the truth.  So Father, I have entered into that blessed rest by trusting and relying on You in the name of Jesus, Amen.