One of the most common questions Christians, and even non-Christians, have is how they can know God’s will for their lives. I believe that we can know God’s will, direction, and purpose for our lives. I also believe that He is constantly trying to communicate with us but we’re just not listening or maybe don’t know what His voice sounds like.

“Consecrating Ourselves to God’s Will” is the first of four thoughts on how we can better prepare our hearts to hear from our Lord. Portions of the following were adapted from Kenneth E. Hagin’s book Following God’s Plan for Your Life.

Let’s start by taking a closer look at Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Matthew 26:36-42
36Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

39Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

40Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41″Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”

42He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

These verses give us an example of Jesus’ dedication as He consecrated Himself to do the Father’s will.

Jesus said, “Yet not as I will, but as you will,” because He knew that the scourging and the cross was before Him.

Think of all the sins committed by us, humankind, throughout all time — all the immorality, debauchery, murder, and hatred. Second Corinthians 5:21 says that Jesus was made sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. But Jesus’ death on the cross had to happen in order for all of us to be saved.

It was Jesus’ consecration to His Father’s will (and not His own) from the beginning that allowed Him to be led by the Spirit of God, and ultimately, to know the Will of the Father. But what does consecration really mean? It’s certainly not a word I hear used in casual conversation in our modern society.

Consecration:
ORIGIN- from the Latin consecrat- ‘dedicated, devoted as sacred,’ from the verb consecrare, from con- (expressing intensive force) + sacrare ‘dedicate,’ from sacer ‘sacred.’

The above definition suggests that consecrating your life means to force your life into sacred dedication.
The prayer of consecration is not just a one-time prayer like that of a salvation prayer. The prayer(s) of consecration is (or should be) the fruit of a consecrated life! We will only be able to know and follow God’s plan for our lives if we constantly maintain an attitude of consecration and surrender to the Lord’s will, whatever it might be.

The consecrated life is a life of faith, a living by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Consider our own consecration to the Lord. If you believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then you obviously trust Him with your salvation, but do you trust Him with the direction of the rest of your life? We (myself included) need to be willing to do anything that God wants us to do. We need to choose to commit ourselves to God and to obey His will every day for the rest of our lives.

So how are we doing?

Here are some practical things we can do to live a consecrated life:

1. Never say never.
Don’t rule out something based on your preferences or probability.

For example: being called as a missionary to a foreign country that you dislike.

Choose to say Yes! to whatever God lays before you instead of saying, “I hope He doesn’t call me to (fill in the blank) because I’d never do that.”

2. Get rid of unwillingness in your life.
Being unwilling, even in the smallest area of our life, is not living in faith — it’s living in the flesh.

Just as “a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough” (Galatians 5:9) so unwillingness has a nasty way of spreading to other areas of our lives.

At it’s root, unwillingness is really saying that you think your will is better than God’s. So stop it at the root by humbling yourself before God.

3. Life if full of choices; take them one-at-a-time.
Most people want to know the FULL will of God before they’ll obey but that’s not usually how God reveals His plan.

Don’t get stuck on one choice thinking you need to have the answer for every choice after it.

As God allows choices to cross your path take them one at a time making your decision based on what God has revealed to you so far.