Made for Thyself, O God! Made for Thy love, Thy service, Thy delight; Made to show forth Thy wisdom, grace, and might; Made for Thy praise, whom veiled archangels laud; Oh strange and glorious thought, that we may be A joy to Thee! Yet the heart turns away From this grand destiny of bliss, and deems ’Twas made for its poor self, for passing dreams, Chasing illusions melting day by day; Till for ourselves we read on this world’s best, “This is not rest!” Nor can the vain toil cease, Till in the shadowy maze of life we meet One who can guide our aching, wayward feet To find Himself, our Way, our Life, our Peace. In Him the long unrest is soothed and stilled; Our hearts are filled.
"Keep my moments and my days, let them flow in ceaseless praise" Is it too much for them all to 'flow in ceaseless praise'? Well, where will you stop? What proportion of your moments do you think enough for Jesus? How many for the spirit of praise, and how many for the spirit of heaviness? Be explicit about it, and come to an understanding. If He is not to have all, then how much? Calculate, balance, and apportion. You will not be able to do this in heaven—you know it will be all praise there; but you are free to halve your service of praise here, or to make the proportion what you will. Yet,—He made you for His glory. Yet,—He chose you that you should be to the praise of His glory. Yet,—He loves you every moment, waters you every moment, watches you unslumberingly, cares for you unceasingly. Yet,—He died for you! Dear friends, one can hardly write it without tears. Shall you or I remember all this love, and hesitate to give all our moments up to Him? Let us entrust Him with them, and ask Him to keep them all, every single one, for His own beloved self, and fill them all with His praise, and let them all be to His praise!
Consecration is not a religiously selfish thing. If it sinks into that, it ceases to be consecration. We want our lives kept, not that we may feel happy, and be saved the distress consequent on wandering, and get the power with God and man, and all the other privileges linked with it. We shall have all this, because the lower is included in the higher: but our true aim, if the love of Christ constraineth us, will be far beyond this. Not for 'me' at all but 'for Jesus'; not for my safety, but for His glory; not for my comfort, but for His joy; not that I may find rest, but that He may see the travail of His soul, and be satisfied! Yes, for Him I want to be kept. Kept for His sake; kept for His use; kept to be His witness; kept for His joy! Kept for Him, that in me He may show forth some tiny sparkle of His light and beauty; kept to do His will and His work in His own way; kept, it may be, to suffer for His sake; kept for Him, that He may do just what seemeth Him good with me; kept, so that no other lord shall have any more dominion over me, but that Jesus shall have all there is to have;—little enough, indeed, but not divided or diminished by any other claim. Is not this, O you who love the Lord—is not this worth living for, worth asking for, worth trusting for? This is consecration, and I cannot tell you the blessedness of it.
What a long time it takes us to come down to the conviction, and still more to the realization of the fact that without Him we can do nothing, but that He must work all our works in us! This is the work of God, that ye believe in Him whom He has sent.
The heart that is not entrusted to Him for searching, will not be undertaken by Him for cleansing; the life that fears to come to the light lest any deed should be reproved, can never know the blessedness and the privileges of walking in the light.