PRAYER OF CONSECRATION

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. 

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.

Jesus, we belong to you. 

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. 

Acts 23:23–30

Then he called two of his centurions and ordered them, “Get ready a detachment of two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and two hundred spearmen to go to Caesarea at nine tonight. Provide horses for Paul so that he may be taken safely to Governor Felix.”

He wrote a letter as follows:

Claudius Lysias,

To His Excellency, Governor Felix:

Greetings.

This man was seized by the Jews and they were about to kill him, but I came with my troops and rescued him, for I had learned that he is a Roman citizen. I wanted to know why they were accusing him, so I brought him to their Sanhedrin. I found that the accusation had to do with questions about their law, but there was no charge against him that deserved death or imprisonment. When I was informed of a plot to be carried out against the man, I sent him to you at once. I also ordered his accusers to present to you their case against him.

CONSIDER THIS

470

Did you pick up that number?

Four hundred and seventy.

200 soldiers + 200 spearmen + 70 horsemen = 470 heavily armed, highly trained warriors from the world’s most powerful army.

And they left secretly, under cover of darkness. It sounds like an escort for Caesar himself. It was all for one man, a first-century Jew representing a marginal religion in an unimpressive part of the world. Remember, these soldiers were not exactly up against ISIS either. According to the text, the threat was a vigilante lynch mob of forty Jewish men. Overkill doesn’t begin to describe the situation. I can imagine the incredulous conversations between some of those soldiers along the way to the coast. 

What on earth is going on here? Is this all because Paul was a Roman citizen? I don’t think so. I think it was because he was a citizen of heaven. The real reason? Jesus wanted the kingdom of heaven planted in Rome, and he wanted his chief apostolic emissary to the Gentiles to be the ambassador.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking Paul’s privileged status as a Roman citizen somehow opened the door for Jesus. Jesus was actually opening the door of his kingdom to Rome through Paul’s citizenship in heaven.

The Holy Spirit will often engage and employ our earthly credentials and accomplishments to get his work done; it’s just not usually how we would have done it.

The best thing we can do is to put our résumé on the altar as an irrevocable offering to Jesus and then go on about our business. It’s a kind of Holy Spirit networked LinkedIn for the kingdom of God. You will be surprised at how and when he brings it to bear for the greater good. Much of the time you will have no idea it’s happening until later. 

Early in life, I set out to build a powerful and impressive résumé. I joined the best fraternity and built a network of significant relationships among the rich, famous, and powerful. I went to the right schools, made the best grades, and acquired strong credentials, including a juris doctorate and law license. I worked in prestigious law firms and at high levels in public service. And guess what? None of it mattered like I thought it would. And all of it has mattered like I never imagined it could. Many years ago (and many times since), by the grace of God, I tendered my résumé on the altar of the cross. Jesus didn’t need any of it and yet I sense he has used all of it. Even still, I call on Jesus to slay any pride I have in any of it. I think what I am trying to say in all of this is what the apostle Paul said so long ago: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14).

THE PRAYER OF TRANSFORMATION

Lord Jesus, I am your witness. I long to be like you. 

I receive your righteousness and release my sinfulness.
I receive your wholeness and release my brokenness.
I receive your fullness and release my emptiness.
I receive your peace and release my anxiety.
I receive your joy and release my despair.
I receive your healing and release my sickness.
I receive your love and release my selfishness.
I receive your authority and release my credentials.
I receive your reputation and release my resume. 

Come, Holy Spirit, transform my heart, mind, soul, and strength so that my consecration becomes your demonstration; that our lives become your sanctuary. For the glory of God our Father, amen.

THE JOURNAL PROMPTS

Can you recount a situation when a worldly credential or achievement or honor was somehow surprisingly deployed by Jesus to accomplish his purposes for his kingdom?

THE HYMN

Today we will sing the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” As it is not in our Seedbed hymnal I will print the words below:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on.

Glory, Glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal”
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel
Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free
While God is marching on.

—Julia Ward Howe (1862)

For the Awakening,
J. D. Walt

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