‘Consecrate Yourselves’
- Jun 20, 2025
- 6 min read
Joshua 3:5: “ Then Joshua said to the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”
When was the last time we were gripped by a sense of wonder and were prepared to be used again by the Lord? For the children of Israel, it was 40 years!
How long has it been since you experienced God do the incredible, the more-than-you-could-imagine work of grace?
God does want to do amazing things, yet it starts with a call to 'consecrate ourselves.'
'Consecrate' is a word we don’t hear much about! It’s more than going to church, tithing, sharing faith, volunteering, raising your hands in worship, etc. All these are good things, but they are not consecration. Consecration means dethroning yourself and enthroning Jesus as Lord, and being ‘Sold Out’ for Him. It’s laying down our agendas in total surrender to the Lord.
Note that verse 5 is a command with a promise.
A.W. Tozer reminds us, “Before God can do something through us, He must first do something in us.”
“Consecrate” is the Hebrew word ‘Qadash’, and here it means, “consecrate yourselves, set yourselves apart, prepare yourselves,” for God alone.
God was telling His people that if they ever thought of crossing the uncrossable Jordan to follow the will of God, then it must start in their own hearts and lives.
Consecration will always demand a change in our actions, attitude and agendas. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 we read that the old has to go for the new to come.
D.L. Moody once said, “You must be emptied of self before you can be filled with God."
Another translation uses the word ‘Sanctify.’ It’s interesting that they were not told to make a strategy, or scheme their way through, or to strive to make it work, or to struggle with the flood waters. None of these; but they were to be personal and sanctify themselves. Before we can go into God's promises and receive and enjoy the spiritual blessings, He says, today sanctify yourself because tomorrow!
Coming out of the land of ALMOST, we must learn to walk in the Spirit. That is, learning to give control of our life to God and to follow Him as He leads us through His Word and through prayer. It may not always be easy, but I’ve found, if you’re really prepared to follow, He will certainly lead!
If you and I ever expect to get past the 'Jordans' or that place of ALMOST that have arisen in our lives, we must without reservation, surrender everything to Him. I mean ourselves, our possessions, our time, our profession, our gifts and talents and everything connected to the
wilderness! You see, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 states: “You are not your own...you have been bought with a price.”
Consecration is the only way to be ready and open to the wonders of tomorrow! Is there an area of your life that you simply refuse to yield up and hand over to Jesus’ Lordship? He has called us to be “crossover” people.
In order to go FORWARD with God, we need to give up all hope of a better past!!
Let’s pause and ask, what will this mean?
Jeffrey R. Holland said, “If gospel standards seem high and the personal improvement needed in the days ahead seems out of reach, remember Joshua’s encouragement to his people when they faced a daunting future, ‘sanctify yourself … for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.'”
But notice, and this is very important, the consecration of the people of God is not so much something that qualifies them to get the blessing, as it is the necessary means of receiving the blessing that God intends to give. It isn’t, "Lord, if I give myself to You…and do a deal with You, then will I get more blessings in my life." No!
God says, "This land, is yours!" But there is no other way into that land except through unreserved consecration to Me. It means repentance! We must cross through that which perhaps we once thought was uncrossable spiritually and be set apart for Him.
It's a reminder of God’s holiness. God is absolute holiness; completely set apart from sin. When there is a lack of consecration, along with poor commitment to God’s purpose for our lives in service or ministry, we hinder the power of God in our lives.
The Psalmist knew the order. See Psalm 139:23–24: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting."
Alexander MacLaren once said, "If you want to live in this world, doing the duty of life, knowing the blessings of it, doing your work heartily, and yet not absorbed by it, remember that the one power whereby you can so act is, that all shall be consecrated to Christ, and done for His sake."
Israel had lost their identity of being God’s people: one of holiness and of the purpose, of establishing the Kingdom of God on earth. So, Joshua called the Israelites to re-identify themselves with God through consecration.
For the children of Israel to move forward, they would have to find their true identity again, which would mean losing the wilderness identity.
Likewise, the importance of our identity as followers of Christ, is rooted in the holiness of God.
Stop for a moment
We must realise we can’t have the Promise and still hold to the Wilderness. This must mean 'breaking the default position.' 40 years of it!!
You see, the place of 'Almost’ is not your identity!
Can you truly say with Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20)?
Did you know, the original Latin meaning of 'default' is: to fail, to disappoint? Yet, in today’s language it has come to mean something that is usual or standard, or a selection made automatically or without consideration due to lack of an alternative. The sad thing is, we end up becoming default Christians!
We must never allow a spirit of familiarity to cheapen our walk with the Lord. We must stop partnering with the world, and instead align our thinking with that of heaven. Which must mean losing the wilderness identity and reclaiming our true identity as the people of God and establishing His Kingdom on earth. This comes through consecration.
Dallas Willard once said, “When we surrender our will to God we consent to his supremacy in all things. Perhaps we do so grudgingly. We may not be able to do his will, but we’re willing to will it. This is an important move forward. The centre of the self, the heart or spirit, is now willing for God to be God.”
Here in Joshua 3:5, the children of Israel are told to worship and “consecrate” themselves. This word, interestingly, has another meaning: it can also mean SHINE!
We’re to “shine” for Him. When we give ourselves fully to the Lord, we’re separated from selfish desires and we end up shining to those around us.
Philippians 2:15-16a says, “So that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.”
Imagine being Blameless - above reproach; Pure - unmixed with anything; and Faultless -an offering to God.
We’ll certainly make an impact on the world if our lives are visibly and noticeably different from the people around us. We SHINE - wow!! (See 2 Corinthians 4:6.)
As we give ourselves to Him, and walk in His presence, God’s own glory begins to reflect itself upon us, in us and through us.
We’ve finally lost the 'Wilderness Spirit' that ‘Place of Almost’, and are now ready for a reframing of our lives to enter the ‘Place of Promise’.
So, God's question for us all today is, are you willing that this should be true?
Then CONSECRATE YOURSELF!
"Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out." (Roms 12:1-2, The Message).
PRAYER
“Come Holy Spirit… Convict us, convert us, consecrate us, until we are set free from the service of ourselves, to be your servants to the world” (J. H. Newman).
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