Christian Fellowship Community Group
A safe place for Christians who Love Jesus Christ to meet and ask for prayer and share scriptures from the bible. We value the posting of Christian music, poems, stories and also personal testimonies. Please let us know your needs, concerns and have some fun getting to know each other. We treat each other with respect.
"The wisdom of the fathers"
PRESENT YOURSELVES
Let us observe that this ‘presenting’ relates to the members of my body—that body which, as we said earlier, is now unemployed in respect to sin. “Present yourselves... and your members”, says Paul, and again: “Present your members” (Romans 6:13, 19). God requires of me that I now regard all my members, all my faculties, as belonging wholly to Him.
It is a great thing when I discover I am no longer my own but His. If the ten shillings in my pocket belong to me, then I have full authority over them. But if they belong to another who has committed them to me in trust, then I cannot buy what I please with them, and I dare not lose them. Real Christian life begins with knowing this. How many of us know that, because Christ is risen, we are therefore alive “unto God” and not unto ourselves? How many of us dare not use our time or money or talents as we would, because we realize they are the Lord’s not ours? How many of us have such a strong sense that we belong to Another that we dare not squander a shilling of our money, or an hour of our time, or any of our mental or physical powers?
Paul says, “Present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification (A.V. ‘holiness’)” (Romans 6:19). Make it a definite act. “Present yourselves to God.”
...Presenting myself to God implies a recognition that I am altogether His. This giving of myself is a definite thing, just as definite as reckoning. There must be a day in my life when I pass out of my own hands into His, and from that day forward I belong to Him and no longer to myself. That does not mean that I consecrate myself to be a preacher or a missionary. Alas, many people are missionaries not because they have truly consecrated themselves to God but because, in the sense of which we are speaking, they have not consecrated themselves to Him. They have ‘consecrated’ (as they would put it) something altogether different, namely, their own uncrucified natural faculties to the doing of His work; but that is not true consecration. Then to what are we to be consecrated? Not to Christian work, but to the will of God to be and do whatever He wants.
... Not only Paul’s path but the path of every Christian has been clearly marked out by God, and it is of supreme importance that each one should know and walk in the God-appointed course. ‘Lord, I give myself to Thee with this desire alone, to know and walk in the path Thou hast ordained.’ That is true giving. If at the close of a life we can say with Paul: “I have finished my course”, then we are blessed indeed. There is nothing more tragic than to come to the end of life and know we have been on the wrong course. We have only one life to live down here and we are free to do as we please with it, but if we seek our own pleasure our life will never glorify God. A devoted Christian once said in my hearing, ‘I want nothing for myself; I want everything for God.’ Do you want anything apart from God, or does all your desire center in His will? Can you truly say that the will of God is “good and acceptable and perfect” to you? (Romans 12:2)
For it is our wills that are in question here. That strong self-assertive will of mine must go to the Cross, and I must give myself over wholly to the Lord. We cannot expect a tailor to make us a coat if we do not give him any cloth, nor a builder to build us a house if we let him have no building material; and in just the same way we cannot expect the Lord to live out His life in us if we do not give Him our lives in which to live. Without reservations, without controversy, we must give ourselves to Him to do as He pleases with us. “Present yourselves unto God” (Romans 6:13).
(by Watchman Nee)
PRESENT YOURSELVES
Let us observe that this ‘presenting’ relates to the members of my body—that body which, as we said earlier, is now unemployed in respect to sin. “Present yourselves... and your members”, says Paul, and again: “Present your members” (Romans 6:13, 19). God requires of me that I now regard all my members, all my faculties, as belonging wholly to Him.
It is a great thing when I discover I am no longer my own but His. If the ten shillings in my pocket belong to me, then I have full authority over them. But if they belong to another who has committed them to me in trust, then I cannot buy what I please with them, and I dare not lose them. Real Christian life begins with knowing this. How many of us know that, because Christ is risen, we are therefore alive “unto God” and not unto ourselves? How many of us dare not use our time or money or talents as we would, because we realize they are the Lord’s not ours? How many of us have such a strong sense that we belong to Another that we dare not squander a shilling of our money, or an hour of our time, or any of our mental or physical powers?
Paul says, “Present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification (A.V. ‘holiness’)” (Romans 6:19). Make it a definite act. “Present yourselves to God.”
...Presenting myself to God implies a recognition that I am altogether His. This giving of myself is a definite thing, just as definite as reckoning. There must be a day in my life when I pass out of my own hands into His, and from that day forward I belong to Him and no longer to myself. That does not mean that I consecrate myself to be a preacher or a missionary. Alas, many people are missionaries not because they have truly consecrated themselves to God but because, in the sense of which we are speaking, they have not consecrated themselves to Him. They have ‘consecrated’ (as they would put it) something altogether different, namely, their own uncrucified natural faculties to the doing of His work; but that is not true consecration. Then to what are we to be consecrated? Not to Christian work, but to the will of God to be and do whatever He wants.
... Not only Paul’s path but the path of every Christian has been clearly marked out by God, and it is of supreme importance that each one should know and walk in the God-appointed course. ‘Lord, I give myself to Thee with this desire alone, to know and walk in the path Thou hast ordained.’ That is true giving. If at the close of a life we can say with Paul: “I have finished my course”, then we are blessed indeed. There is nothing more tragic than to come to the end of life and know we have been on the wrong course. We have only one life to live down here and we are free to do as we please with it, but if we seek our own pleasure our life will never glorify God. A devoted Christian once said in my hearing, ‘I want nothing for myself; I want everything for God.’ Do you want anything apart from God, or does all your desire center in His will? Can you truly say that the will of God is “good and acceptable and perfect” to you? (Romans 12:2)
For it is our wills that are in question here. That strong self-assertive will of mine must go to the Cross, and I must give myself over wholly to the Lord. We cannot expect a tailor to make us a coat if we do not give him any cloth, nor a builder to build us a house if we let him have no building material; and in just the same way we cannot expect the Lord to live out His life in us if we do not give Him our lives in which to live. Without reservations, without controversy, we must give ourselves to Him to do as He pleases with us. “Present yourselves unto God” (Romans 6:13).
(by Watchman Nee)
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