The hymn I Am Thine, O Lord, whose words came from Fanny J Crosby, features the powerful lyric, Consecrate me now for thy service, Lord. What does that mean to the Kingsman?
A tradesman doesn’t carry every tool in his bag on every job. He owns dozens; he sets aside two or three, cleans them, and leaves the rest at home, because today’s job only wants the tools built for it. That’s nearer to what consecration means than the vague sense of “being extra holy for a while.” It isn’t about having more. It’s about setting something specific apart for a specific purpose. Scripture hands the Kingsman that same instruction in several different rooms, and it’s worth hearing it in each one.
Paul urges the Romans, by the mercies of God, to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which he calls their reasonable service (Romans 12:1). Joshua tells the people to consecrate themselves, because tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among them (Joshua 3:5). Moses consecrates Israel at the base of the mountain for an encounter they couldn’t have arranged themselves (Exodus 19:10-11, 14). And Paul tells Timothy that the man who cleanses himself becomes a vessel for honourable use, set apart, ready for every good work (2 Timothy 2:21). Consider four things the Kingsman can learn and apply from consecration — the reasonable offering he presents (Romans 12:1), the readiness he prepares before he sees the wonder (Joshua 3:5), the holiness he receives as well as keeps (Exodus 19:10-11, 14), and the vessel he becomes once he’s been set apart (2 Timothy 2:21).
The Reasonable Offering He Presents (Romans 12:1). Paul doesn’t ask for a portion. He asks for the body — presented as a living sacrifice, a strange kind of sacrifice by any ancient measure, because every sacrifice a Jewish reader knew about stayed on the altar. This one climbs down and goes to work in the morning. Paul then calls this the Kingsman’s reasonable service, an odd word to reach for in a verse about worship. He isn’t asking for a leap into the emotional or the irrational. He’s saying that giving God the body is the only sane response available to a man who has actually understood what mercy cost. A Kingsman who has grasped what he’s been forgiven doesn’t need working up into consecration with noise and pressure; he needs to see the sum clearly, because a body held back after that sum is done isn’t caution — it’s a man arguing with his own arithmetic. Consecration here isn’t a mood he waits to feel. It’s the reasonable next step after mercy, taken tomorrow morning again.
The Readiness He Prepares Before He Sees the Wonder (Joshua 3:5). Joshua doesn’t tell the people to consecrate themselves after the Jordan parts. He tells them the day before, on the strength of a promise they hadn’t yet watched come true. Notice, too, what the consecration is actually for: it isn’t the Kingsman’s readiness that moves the water. The ark goes ahead of the people into the river; God does the parting. The Kingsman’s consecration doesn’t cause the wonder. It positions him to walk into one he had no hand in making. That distinction matters, because the natural instinct is to save the serious posture for after the evidence arrives — to get ready once the outcome is confirmed, once there’s nothing left to risk in taking it seriously. Joshua asks for readiness on the near side of the miracle, not the far side, and asks for it precisely because the wonder belongs to God, not to the man getting ready for it. Getting dressed for a crossing he isn’t the one opening is what makes tomorrow’s obedience look like faith rather than hindsight.
The Holiness He Receives as Well as Keeps (Exodus 19:10-11, 14). Before Israel meets God at Sinai, Moses is told to consecrate the people and mark out limits around the mountain, because the meeting is real and not casual. What’s easy to miss is who does the consecrating. The text doesn’t only say the people washed their own clothes — it says Moses went down and consecrated them, an action performed on Israel by a mediator, not purely a discipline they worked up alone. That reshapes how the Kingsman should hear this. Yes, there are clothes to wash — attitudes and appetites he’d rather bring in unexamined — but the deeper holiness making the meeting possible was administered to him, not manufactured by him. He still keeps the boundary Moses marks out around the mountain; he doesn’t scale it out of overfamiliarity. But he keeps it as a man who was brought near by someone else’s mediating work, not as a man who scrubbed his own way into worthiness. The distance is real. So is the hand that led him to the edge of it.
The Vessel He Becomes Once He’s Been Set Apart (2 Timothy 2:21). Paul tells Timothy that the man who cleanses himself from what is dishonourable becomes a vessel for honourable use, set apart, ready for every good work. Just before this sits a picture of a house holding vessels of gold and silver alongside vessels of wood and clay, some for honourable use and some for dishonourable. The difference between them isn’t the material. It’s what each one has been kept for. A cup can hold poison or medicine and look identical doing either. Consecration decides which one the Kingsman actually is on a given day — not by upgrading what he’s made of, but by cleansing what he’s willing to hold. Usefulness isn’t handed to him as a reward for arriving somewhere. It’s handed to him the moment he’s willing to be emptied of what shouldn’t be in him. Readiness for every good work was never about talent stacking up. It was always about a vessel deciding, again and again, what it will and won’t carry.
The tradesman doesn’t leave tools at home because they’re worthless. He leaves them because today’s job only wants the two that were made for it, cleaned and set apart before he ever left the house. That’s the whole shape of consecration for the Kingsman — not accumulation, but selection; not a feeling summoned, but a choice repeated.
As he sings, asking Jesus to draw him nearer to His precious bleeding side, this is what it means for the Kingsman to grow through consecration.
For His Name’s Sake
C. L. J. Dryden
Shalom
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