How may we know our consecration is accepted?
This my be known by the positive word of God, by the witness of the Spirit, by the divine response to faith, and by self-evident intuition.
1. What God says we know. His word of promise is, "I will receive you." Can anything be more positive?
2. In the light of the "witness of the Spirit," we know it, just as we know that the sun shines when he is pouring his mid-day beams upon the world. "We have not received the spirit of the world, but that which is of God, that we may know the things freely given to us of God." Grace to fully submit to God is one of his free gifts, and a knowledge that he accepts our offering is another of his gifts.
3. Some of the results, and some items of the divine response to entire consecration, are immediately and consciously realized. In his lecture on " Conscience as the Foundation of the Religion of Science," Rev. Joseph Cook says:
This my be known by the positive word of God, by the witness of the Spirit, by the divine response to faith, and by self-evident intuition.
1. What God says we know. His word of promise is, "I will receive you." Can anything be more positive?
2. In the light of the "witness of the Spirit," we know it, just as we know that the sun shines when he is pouring his mid-day beams upon the world. "We have not received the spirit of the world, but that which is of God, that we may know the things freely given to us of God." Grace to fully submit to God is one of his free gifts, and a knowledge that he accepts our offering is another of his gifts.
3. Some of the results, and some items of the divine response to entire consecration, are immediately and consciously realized. In his lecture on " Conscience as the Foundation of the Religion of Science," Rev. Joseph Cook says:
"I assert that it is a fixed natural law that when you yield utterly to God, He streams into you, gives a new sense of His presence, and imparts a strength unknown before. Will you try such self-surrender, and then will you repeat the experiment as opportunity offers? I care not how often, I affirm that in these billions of opportunities for experiments, in these ten thousand times ten thousand chances to test whether I am right or wrong, you will not find one chance failing to give you this verdict, that if you yield utterly to God, He will stream through you."
4. We may know it as we know the whole of a thing is greater than any of its parts, or that the whole of a thing is equal to the sum of all its parts. To be wholly given to God, in the divine order, is to be accepted of God. Do we need evidence that God is true? that he accepts that which is right and condemns that which is wrong? Can God do otherwise than accept the right and reject the wrong? "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted of him?" The order of God, or laws of grace in spiritual things are as certain and reliable as in nature, and the certitude of religious things is just as strong as in physical things. Christ himself says, "Every one that asketh receiveth." He does not merely say, he shall receive, but he receiveth. It is asserted as a fact, a universal fact, from which there can be no exception.
Rev. Dr. Lowry says: "To ask, then, is to receive. To seek is to find. Asking and receiving, seeking and finding, are coetaneous and inseparable events. It is like breathing and living, and living and breathing." -- Divine Life, June, 1878.
It must be self-evident that God accepts that which is according to his will, (the divine order, or laws of grace are the practical expression of his will,) and that which is in harmony with infinite rectitude. "HAVE FAITH IN GOD."
Well might Rev. John Fletcher say:
"Be it I myself deceive, Yet I must, I must believe."
There is a positive, divinely ordained connection between consecration, evangelical faith, and actual salvation. This is no imaginary phantom or dream, but a living fact, to which millions have given testimony after experimental demonstration.
4. We may know it as we know the whole of a thing is greater than any of its parts, or that the whole of a thing is equal to the sum of all its parts. To be wholly given to God, in the divine order, is to be accepted of God. Do we need evidence that God is true? that he accepts that which is right and condemns that which is wrong? Can God do otherwise than accept the right and reject the wrong? "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted of him?" The order of God, or laws of grace in spiritual things are as certain and reliable as in nature, and the certitude of religious things is just as strong as in physical things. Christ himself says, "Every one that asketh receiveth." He does not merely say, he shall receive, but he receiveth. It is asserted as a fact, a universal fact, from which there can be no exception.
Rev. Dr. Lowry says: "To ask, then, is to receive. To seek is to find. Asking and receiving, seeking and finding, are coetaneous and inseparable events. It is like breathing and living, and living and breathing." -- Divine Life, June, 1878.
It must be self-evident that God accepts that which is according to his will, (the divine order, or laws of grace are the practical expression of his will,) and that which is in harmony with infinite rectitude. "HAVE FAITH IN GOD."
Well might Rev. John Fletcher say:
"Be it I myself deceive, Yet I must, I must believe."
There is a positive, divinely ordained connection between consecration, evangelical faith, and actual salvation. This is no imaginary phantom or dream, but a living fact, to which millions have given testimony after experimental demonstration.
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